


A Surefire Guide to Getting Over Your Ex

by lilbluednacer



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Childhood Friends, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Felicity is Laurel and Sara’s stepsister, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Minor Injuries, Nightmares, POV Alternating, Panic Attacks, Protective Oliver Queen, Recreational Drug Use, Secret Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Sharing a Bed, Spring Break, Underage Drinking, brief Felicity/Cooper, getting over someone by getting under someone else, hints of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-17 23:07:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 63,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21651250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilbluednacer/pseuds/lilbluednacer
Summary: Felicity and Oliver can totally start sleeping together without ruining their friendship… right?
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Comments: 446
Kudos: 825





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay lovelies, a few things before we begin: this story is completely AU so there’s no island and no vigilantes. I am playing with the history of the boat accident a little but that isn’t the primary focus here. Because this is a college AU I aged the characters down, so Oliver, Tommy, and Laurel are all 22, Sara is 20 and Felicity is 19. Felicity is Laurel and Sara’s stepsister in this so she and Oliver grew up together, I’m screwing with everyone’s backstory to some extent in this fic compared to canon.
> 
> A warning in case you missed the tag - this starts with Felicity being in a relationship with Cooper BUT he never appears ‘on screen’, it’s over by the end of the first chapter and it exists solely to kick the plot into motion; this is 100% an Olicity fic. There will be explicit content starting in Chapter 3, I don’t have anything really specific tagged for that but if you think there’s a tag I need to add feel free to let me know in the comments!
> 
> Quotes at the beginning of each chapter are all from Lana Del Rey’s Norman Fucking Rockwell album, which I’ve been listening to on a loop while writing. I have a decent amount of chapters written already and the rest are all outlined, so barring any major life emergencies I will be updating every Monday, hope you enjoy!

_Happiness is a butterfly_  
_Try to catch it like every night_  
_It escapes from my hands into moonlight_  
\- Lana Del Rey, Happiness Is A Butterfly

Oliver is ready to crash for the night when someone outside rings the buzzer to the penthouse he shares with Tommy, at almost two in the morning. Oliver's still drunk but not wasted exactly, now that he's home, has leftover pizza in his system and a liter of water. He left Tommy at the last bar they ended up at, sandwiched between two blondes that will no doubt come home with him after last call.

Oliver went home alone, ignoring the pretty redhead shooting obvious glances at him over the rim of her glass earlier. Tommy gave him shit for it when he left of course, but he's been broken up with Laurel since last summer (for the third time, or forth, he's lost track, the point is, he’s pretty sure it’s permanent this time) and the string of single girls that followed her made him feel hollow, useless for anything except putting tabs on his credit card and doling out orgasms.

He's tired. Tired of being lonely, tired of shallow girls with perfect teeth who want him for his money or his last name.

The buzzer rings again, insistent.

Right. He hits the speaker button.

"Hello?" He's expecting it to be Helena, his downstairs neighbor who never seems to remember her keys and has no problem waking him and Tommy up at all hours to let her into the building.

"Ol'ver?"

He stares at the intercom in confusion. "Felicity?"

"Ol'ver, lemme in, it's cold out."

"Okay, come on up."

He buzzes her in, wondering what the hell she's doing here. She went to a party tonight with Cooper, she shouldn't be here, alone, so late at night. She should be with her boyfriend, this guy in her program who's always getting fucked up and rambling about activism, how the people have to rise up, conspiracy theories about cell phone security.

Oliver generally ignores him, pretends that Cooper is an annoying figment of his imagination. Felicity hates it when he does this, she grumbles that she never complained when Oliver was with her stepsister (okay, both her stepsisters, sort of anyway, nearly dying in a boat accident together put the pin in him and Sara before they could be anything more than a stupid, silly mistake that almost cost them their lives).

He unlocks the door to the penthouse, they’re the only ones on this floor but their elevator is out in the hall, he listens for the impending ding of the elevator before leaning out of the doorway to look for her. Felicity practically falls out of the elevator, stumbling down the hallway in sky high black pumps. She's dressed in only a tiny denim miniskirt that he thinks is Sara's and a tight black top suggesting cleavage and a defined waist, sans jacket even though it’s the end of February and barely forty degrees outside. Her hair is a mess of fluffed up blond curls falling over her face (her high school goth phase was admittedly not his favorite look although it was hilarious how much it freaked out Donna and Lance) and her skin shines with sparkly lotion.

She looks pretty hot, actually. He used to think of Felicity as a cute little kid but sometime between then and now she developed this, like, _body_ , and is totally, blithely unaware of how sexy she is.

It’s kind of a new thing for him, thinking of her this way. They’ve been friends, just friends, for practically forever, since they met at Donna and Quentin’s wedding. Felicity Smoak at seven (and three quarters, she’d informed him), in a peach satin junior bridesmaids dress, wheat brown hair pulled back with a bow, all scrawny limbs and wide blue eyes, had awoken in Oliver some protective instinct, a desire to keep her safe. He had to protect her from the vultures in the ballroom who whispered that her mother was a whore who had put a spell on Lance, and had they seen the girl, who spoke like an adult and was eerily beautiful with her pale skin and curled hair?

Every Cinderella needs a prince, right?

But now he's a senior at Starling City U and Felicity is here too, halfway through her sophomore year, with dyed blond hair and a full scholarship (which is the only reason she’s even here and not matriculating at MIT, the school threw a rather obscene amount of scholarship money at her to convince her to attend, and now Felicity will be able to go to grad school without dragging six figures of student debt along with her).

And she doesn't need him anymore.

Expect that maybe she does, because she’s here. When she makes it to his door her head tilts back and Oliver freaks out just a little, reaching out to pull her into his apartment because -

There's blood trickling down her forehead.

Felicity lurches forward and grips his shirt. "Oliver, I need… I need… oh shit," she mutters, and falls into him.

"Felicity, what the hell? What happened?" He slams the door behind them and brings his hands to the sides of her ribs, her neck, her collarbone, checking for injuries but all he sees is the small sharp cut on her forehead.

Felicity stares up at him, blood standing out in sharp relief against her pale skin. "I'm bleeding."

He grits his teeth. "Yeah, I can see that. What happened, I thought you went to that nerd party?"

They're still standing in the foyer of the penthouse, Felicity holding on to him for support while he tries to not totally freak out that she’s standing here with blood all over her face. He wants to scream at her, because how dare she go out with her boyfriend and then show up here like this? Is she trying to give him a heart attack? 

Except he can’t, because this is Felicity, and he could never yell at her like that when she’s hurt, vulnerable, looking to him to take care of her. He pulls up the hem of his shirt and presses it to the cut on her forehead to stem the bleeding. It's shallow but Oliver knows head wounds can bleed like a motherfucker and he can’t look at it, her perfect porcelain skin stained red.

Felicity's eyes fill with tears. "I can't tell you."

"Felicity."

She crumples, teetering over in her heels. "You're gonna be mad and you're scary when you're mad."

"Am not. Come on, let's clean you up."

She pouts and a few tears spill over. "Are too."

"Am not!” 

"You get all growly." She makes claws with her hands like she’s pretending to be a scary jungle animal and he chokes down a laugh.

“I promise I won’t growl,” he says patiently. He holds out his hands so she can balance against him to kick off her pumps. She instantly drops four inches, her head level with his heart. "Come on," he says, extra soft, for her, and leads her to the bathroom.

She sits on the edge of the sink while he cleans her up, carefully bandaging the cut and wiping the blood off her face. She stares blankly at the wall, eyelids fluttering a bit like she's trying not to drift off. She's pretty drunk, he guesses, because it takes a lot for Felicity to zone out.

"Okay," he says, patting her hip when he’s finished. "All done." 

She sniffs and gives him a wobbly smile. "Thanks."

"Felicity, did Cooper do this?"

She pulls back from him, looking horrified. "It was an accident!"

"What was an accident?"

She shrinks, hunching over on the edge of the sink. "Cooper got in a fight. At Cisco's party."

"With what, your face?"

"No, he - threw a bottle."

"At you?!"

Felicity scowls. "No, but we're computer kids. Not exactly known for our eye-hand coordination. He threw, the guy he was aiming at was at least five feet away, the bottle broke. I wasn’t even there when it happened, I ran back to help him and I tripped in those stupid heels and… face meets glass. Accident."

His hands clench into fists. "Felicity."

She gives him a tentative smile. “Yeah?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Only you.”

She pitches forward to grab his hips and Oliver jumps at the contact of her cool hands cupping over his skin. He bends over her, his chest tight, wondering why someone as adorable and intelligent as Felicity wastes her time with scum.

"I don't want you to get hurt," he mutters.

"I know," Felicity sighs, and pats his back like he's the one that needs comfort. "And I appreciate it but you don't have to worry about me."

“You left a party alone and showed up here in the middle of the night, bleeding, I think I’m allowed to be worried.”

“He paid for the cab,” she adds sullenly. “He isn’t good with blood, okay?”

"Felicity” -

"Oliver," she interrupts. "Enough. I'm fine. It was just an accident, I promise. I'm exhausted and I want to go to bed."

He cups her face in his hands, examines her. She does look pretty tired and not that upset, all things considering.

Maybe she's telling the truth.

“Thanks for fixing my face,” she murmurs, staring up at him with hazy eyes.

He runs his thumb over her cheekbone. “You’re welcome.”

He changes into a clean shirt, gives her an old hockey jersey to sleep in and makes her chug a glass of water and take two aspirin before they get into his bed. They don't cuddle because that would be weird… it should be weird. Shouldn't it? She's his friend, that’s all they’ve ever been. And she's so young and innocent, compared to him, too good for Cooper and probably for Oliver, even if that hurts to admit.

He's acutely aware of her anyway, the heat coming off her skin, those bare thighs inches away from his own. He thinks about it, what her body would feel like next to his, if she'd fit as perfectly into him as he imagines.

And then she rolls over, nuzzles his shoulder with her cheek. "Night Oliver."

He lets his eyes drift shut, inhales the smell of her hair, something fruity. "Goodnight Felicity."

“Thanks,” she murmurs. “For taking care of me.”

That thing happens then, the thing that happens sometimes to him when he’s around her, when she says or does something particularly sweet and he feels it like a punch in the gut.

“I’ll always take care of you,” he whispers in a very quiet voice, like he’s confessing a secret.

She reaches up and scratches around his hairline. “I know.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

It’s dark and he can’t really see her face but he swears he can feel her roll her eyes at him. “I’m sure.”

“Okay.”

She trails her fingers down his face as she withdraws her hand. “Okay.”

*

He wakes up half-hard, someone's ass pushed back against his groin. He's barely awake but not hungover, _sweet_ , and he sighs into it, eyes still shut. Rolls his hips and groans, sleepy and warm and wanting -

An alarm shrieks and the warmth pulls away -

"Oh shit!" Felicity - _Felicity_ \- scrambles out of his bed and stumbles halfway across his room to disable the alarm blaring from her phone. "Shit I have class in twenty minutes oh shit ohmygod this is not happening right now, _shit!_ "

Oliver pushes himself up in bed, watching Felicity yank on her skirt, leaving his jersey on and tucking the hem into the waist of her skirt. "Felicity"-

"Oliver if I don't go right now I won't have time to buy coffee and if I don’t have caffeine in the next ten minutes I am going to be _very_ cranky” -

"Felicity, you're breaking up with Cooper, right?"

She freezes, glasses perched on the end of her nose. "What?"

"Felicity!"

"God, Oliver." Felicity pulls a brush out of her bag and whips it through her hair quickly before tying it back with a hair tie she had on one wrist. "Stay out of it."

Is she joking? "The hell I will, you got hurt” -

"It was an accident" -

"You do realize what you sound like, don't you?"

Felicity glares at him. "You don't know what you're talking about. He cares about me."

"So what? Any guy you date should care about you! That’s like, the lowest bar!"

"Well, I'm not you Oliver. Having someone - a guy, romantically - interested in me like that - he wanted me to be his girlfriend. That means something to me."

"Seriously Felicity, daddy issues much?"

Felicity goes pale. "Fuck you, Oliver."

Oh shit, he should _not_ have said that, he is a _moron_. "Felicity I didn't mean"-

"Oh I know exactly what you meant!"

She stomps out of his room and he chases her down the hallway to stand in the middle of the massive open concept living room and kitchen.

"Felicity, come one, I'm only saying this because I care about you."

"You're just jealous," she snaps. "Because I'm happy and you screwed things up with Laurel again” -

"Laurel has nothing to do with this” -

"You don't even know him Oliver” -

"I know you got hurt when you were with him” -

"It was an accident!" she shrieks.

He takes a step closer to her, seething. "If you were with me I'd never let you get hurt."

Felicity's eyelids flutter. "Well, I'm not with you."

"I know that."

She tilts her head to the side, her eyes searching his face. "Do you?"

"Children!" Tommy storms in from the far hallway that leads to his room on the other side of the penthouse in just a pair of boxers. "What've I told you about fighting before Daddy's had his coffee?"

"Oliver's being an ass!" Felicity yells.

"Felicity, cupcake, when isn't Oliver being an ass?"

"I don't have time for this," she snarls, and stomps away, jams her feet into her heels where she left them in the foyer last night and walks out, slamming the door shut behind her.

"Well she's in a lovely mood." Tommy walks across the room to the kitchen and Oliver follows, watching Tommy inspect the inside of the fridge. "What'd you do this time?"

"I didn't do anything!" 

Tommy snorts and pulls out a container of cream cheese. "Sure Oliver."

"She's the one who showed up here last night all fucked up, bleeding” -

"Whoa, what?"

"Cooper threw a bottle and somehow she managed to cut her face trying to help him."

"He _what?_ "

"It was an accident, apparently."

"Huh." Tommy considers the ziplock of bagels they never put away yesterday sitting on the kitchen island. "And we believe this?"

Oliver sighs and walks across the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. “I don’t know, she didn’t seem that upset about it.”

Tommy snorts. “She was upset about something.”

Oliver leans against the counter and rubs his eyes with his fingertips. “I sort of insinuated that I thought she should break up with Cooper.”

“Oh Ollie, you didn’t.”

“What am I supposed to do, just sit back and watch this trainwreck?”

“Yes!”

Oliver blinks at him stupidly. “But - _why?_ ”

“Because she’s an adult and she can make her own decisions! She doesn’t need you to tell her what to do, and besides, when has that ever done anything but piss her off?”

“Yeah, good point,” Oliver grumbles.

“I know.” Tommy gives him a brilliant smile. “Now if you’ll excuse me I have two beautiful women in my bed I need to wake up.”

*

Oliver spends the whole day feeling guilty about the way he and Felicity left things. He can’t focus in class, which isn’t that much of a change for him, but usually when he can’t pay attention it’s because he’s bored, not because he has a pit in his stomach, an overwhelming sense of dread that he really went too far and hurt her feelings and the idea of it, him and Felicity not being okay, makes him feel so off balance that he ends up waiting outside her lecture hall after her last class. He huddles at the bottom of the steps, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold, looking for her when students start to pour out of the doors.

He finally spots a head full of blond waves tumbling out from under a bright red knit beanie. Felicity’s bundled up in a navy wool peacoat, a lightweight canvas backpack slung over her shoulder. She doesn’t look thrilled to see him but she doesn’t ignore him either, she takes her time coming down the steps and stops a few feet in front of him.

“What are you doing here?” she asks quietly, scuffing the toe of her boot against the sidewalk.

“I just… I just wanted to say I was sorry.”

She sighs and tips her head back. “Okay.”

“Felicity.”

“ _What?_ ”

“At least let me buy you dinner,” he pleads. It’s a low blow, offering to take her out when he knows for a fact that she’s living mostly on cereal and late night pizza but Oliver’s desperate, and what’s the point of having five credit cards he doesn’t pay for if he can’t use them to take care of his friends?

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Maybe.”

“Felicity, c’mon, it’s cold out.”

“Ugh, fine!” She rolls her eyes at him. “I want something good though.”

“Italian? You like Italian.”

She scowls. “Everyone likes Italian.”

“You can have whatever you want, let’s just pick something, yeah?”

She sighs reluctantly. “Leo’s is only a few blocks from here.”

“Okay, cool, let’s go.” He reaches for her backpack and after a moment Felicity huffs and hands it over.

Oliver slings it over his shoulder and Felicity shoves her hands in her pockets. She starts to walk, head down against the wind, and Oliver sticks close to her, pushing through the early evening crowd to the restaurant Felicity chose. Leo’s in a hole in the wall Italian place that makes its own pasta fresh and costs way more than a typical college student can afford on a school night but Oliver isn’t a typical college student.

They get seated at a table near the fireplace, when they sit down Felicity takes off her beanie and Oliver notes with relief that she’s removed the bandaid and all that remains of her cut is a tiny scab. He shrugs out of his brown leather jacket and opens his menu while Felicity mirrors him, her bright blue fingernail polish flashing as she opens hers before shaking out her napkin.

“Are you ordering wine?” she asks, which is really code for, are you ordering _me_ wine, because Felicity may be nineteen but Oliver hasn’t been carded in Starling City since he was sixteen, because when you’re this wealthy the rules of regular society don’t really apply.

Oliver raises an eyebrow at her. “Does that mean you accept my apology?”

“I might if you buy me a glass of wine,” she shoots back, but the corners of her mouth turn up fractionally and Oliver knows he’s got her.

When their waiter comes, a slim baby-faced boy who’s too shy to look Oliver right in the eye, he orders glasses of Merlot for him and Felicity with a brisk self-assuredness that isn’t questioned for a moment. Felicity laughs quietly as their waiter walks across the restaurant to the bar, tracing patterns into the condensation of her water glass.

“I almost feel bad for them sometimes,” she comments.

“Don’t, I always tip fifty percent,” Oliver tells her.

“You know what I mean.” Felicity sighs and pushes her glasses up her nose. “Sorry, I’m just tired.”

He picks at the edge of his menu. “You talk to Cooper?”

“Oliver.”

“What?”

She looks down at the table. “Did you mean what you said before?”

His stomach knots up. “Felicity.”

She lifts her head, giving him that innocent wide-eyed look he can never deny. “Did you?”

He squirms in his chair. “I just meant… I think you could have anyone you wanted. That’s all.”

She blinks at him. “Wha - really?”

“Uh, yeah, I mean, you’re terrifyingly smart, you’re fun, you’re a good person, you’re hot” -

“You think I’m hot?”

Oliver freezes, did he really just say that out loud? God, how is he _this_ stupid? “Uh, uh-huh,” he stutters. “I mean, of course you are, like, you’re objectively very attractive, you - did you not know that?”

She stares at him, her cheeks flushing. “You’re babbling.”

“Am not,” he retorts, craning his neck to see what the fuck is taking so long with the wine.

“Oliver, I’m an Olympic gold medalist in babbling, I know it when I see it. You’re - babbling about my hotness and oh my god, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d say, wow, today is not going at all the way I thought it would, I can’t believe you think I’m hot, this is like, extremely important information, you know” -

He starts laughing. “Now who’s babbling?”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“What was I supposed to say, hey friend who I've known since childhood” -

“And slept with both my stepsisters,” Felicity adds.

“See!” He slouches in his chair, the back of his neck hot. “How am I supposed to randomly mention that without making it weird?”

“It’s not weird,” she replies quickly. “It’s definitely not weird, more like extremely flattering.”

He knows she doesn’t mean it that way but it feels like she’s letting him down gently, like he took her out to dinner with the intention of trying to steal her away from Cooper when all he’s trying to do is fix their friendship before his dumb brain completely ruins it.

“It’s not like it matters,” he mutters.

Felicity pulls back a little. “What do you mean?”

“You’re still with Cooper, aren’t you?” he points out.

“Oh.” Her face falls. “Yeah.”

“Right.”

The wine appears, and both of them start drinking without saying another word to each other.

*

Oliver doesn’t see Felicity again for the rest of the school week. They text a few times but nothing of substance, send memes and gifs of baby animals back and forth, share music playlists. They’re in that delicate phase right after an argument, where everything is still raw so they stick to the most banal topics until the bruises are fully healed.

He goes out with Tommy Saturday night, mostly because Sara’s meeting them at the bar and Oliver secretly hopes Felicity might’ve tagged along with her, but when they get there Sara’s sitting alone on a stool wearing a tight black dress and thigh high boots, her hair slicked back from her face. Oliver swallows his disappointment and kisses her politely on the cheek, she hands them drinks she already ordered and leads them upstairs where the DJ is.

Oliver takes a sip of his drink and winces at the burn. “What is this?” he shouts at Sara over the pound of the bass as they search for an open table near the dance floor.

“ _Stolichnaya, dorogoy_ ,” Sara answers, her voice low and ironic.

“What?” Tommy yells.

“Vodka!” Sara points to his glass. “It’s vodka!”

“Works for me!” Tommy tosses back his whole drink and smacks his lips. “Excuse me, Daddy needs to find some ladies to dance with.”

Sara gives him a withering stare. “You cannot call yourself that.”

He grins. “I just did.”

“You’re revolting.”

“And I get laid more than all of you, so.” Tommy smirks as he walks right into the crush of the dance floor.

Sara rolls her eyes and leans against the wall. “He hasn’t changed at all.”

“And probably never will.”

Sara looks up at him and Oliver wonders if she’s thinking the same thing he is, that the two of them changed whether they wanted to or not. They didn’t have a choice, you can’t go through a trauma like that without coming home different, haunted, scarred. In some ways he feels like Sara’s the only one who understands him now; who knows what it’s like to come back to a life that you don’t neatly fit into anymore.

Sara winks at him and holds her glass up. “Bottoms up, Queen.”

Oliver shrugs and chugs back the vodka, eyes watering at the burn. Sara whoops and grabs his hand. “C’mon, let’s go mingle!”

He lets her drag him onto the dance floor, surrenders to the crowd and Sara’s body tugging him into an open space. Lights flash across their faces and Oliver tries to relax, let Sara take the lead and sink into the alcohol, the music, forget about school and Laurel’s face when he came back after the boat accident and the cut on Felicity’s head, drifts until he remembers what it feels like to be Oliver Queen, billionaire playboy extraordinaire, the party boy everyone expects him to be.

He and Sara break off after awhile and dance on their own, with strangers, with the group of sorority sisters Tommy brings over with a thrilled expression on his face, like Christmas has come early. Eventually Oliver needs a break, he mimes to Tommy over the din of the music that he’s going to the bathroom and takes off down the hallway that leads to the restrooms, the vibrations of the bass so loud and deep they feel like they’re coming from inside his body.

The men’s room is crowded with guys who are all the same as him: wealthy, well dressed, connected. Oliver keeps his head down while he’s in there, for the most part people at school leave him be, everyone who’s anyone is Starling City has grown used to his presence (and antics) but he isn’t looking for trouble either and he’s had his fair share of stupid drunken mistunderstandings that’ve ended with a ride in Lance’s cop car.

His phone starts buzzing in his pocket while he’s washing his hands, Oliver finishes up quickly and dries them with a paper towel, takes his phone out as he leaves the men’s room and stops in the hallway, leaning against the wall, wondering why the hell Barry Allen is calling him.

Barry is in Felicity’s year, they met last year when they both took the same Western History lecture. He’s tall and gangly, handsome in a friendly sort of way, Oliver supposes. Every time Felicity talks about Barry her eyes light up and she starts smiling, he's friends with other people in her program and quickly became part of her core social circle outside of Oliver, Tommy and the Lance girls. Barry’s relentlessly cheerful, always smiling, Felicity says all the girls in their year are half in love with him.

Oliver loathes him.

He still picks up the phone though, because he’s been trying not to be a dick anymore since he came home, and leaving Felicity’s friend hanging for no better reason than the fact than Oliver’s jealous of the way Felicity talks about him would definitely be a dick move.

“Hey Barry, what’s up?”

“Hey Oliver, how's it going?”

“Fine,” he says shortly. “Did you need something?”

“Yeah, well, I’m outside Shooting Star, you know, that bar on” -

“Yeah, yeah, why?”

“Well, I’m with Felicity and I uh, I think she’s ready to go home, I tried calling Sara but she didn’t pick up.”

“She needs a ride?”

“She’s uh, not exactly conscious enough for me to feel comfortable putting her in a cab by herself, and, um...”

“Spit it out, Barry.”

“She was kind of asking for you between all the crying and the, uh, puking.”

Oliver winces and tips his head back against the wall, wondering what the hell happened that made Felicity decide to get blackout drunk. “I’m on my way.”

“Thanks man.” Barry’s relief is palpable through the phone.

“Stay where you are, I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay. Thanks Oliver.”

“Yeah.” Oliver hangs up, orders a car and decides to text Sara and Tommy that he’s leaving instead of wasting time trying to find them to say goodbye in person.

He pushes his way out of the club and gasps out a breath at the cold night air, wishing he’d brought a jacket. He jogs to the corner of the block, tracking the car on his phone, and when it arrives he climbs into the backseat and relaxes at the blast of warm air.

“I need to make two stops, is that okay?” he asks, twisting around to buckle his seatbelt.

His driver, a young woman with three different facial piercings and black lipstick, checks her mirrors and screeches away from the curb. “Whatever, it’s your money dude.”

He stares out the window, the bright lights of Starling City blurring past. He’s glad now that he only had one drink, feels relatively sober, enough to deal with whatever the hell Felicity has gotten herself into. When they get to the bar Oliver has the driver park at the curb and stay in the car with the hazard lights flashing. He jumps out and immediately sees Barry and Felicity waiting for him on a bench against the brick exterior of the bar; Felicity’s wearing a tight sparkly black dress with a small bag dangling off one shoulder and what he assumes is Barry’s jacket, the red fabric loosely draped around her. She’s crumpled over, her face pressed against her thighs and her arms folded over the back of her head while Barry whispers to her, his arm wrapped around her shoulders.

“Hey!” Barry calls out as Oliver approaches, warm as ever. “Felicity, look who’s here.”

Felicity just moans, the toes of her strappy heels scraping against the sidewalk.

Oliver crouches down in front of her and looks up at Barry. “What happened?”

A muscle in Barry’s jaw twitches. “She and Cooper broke up.”

Oliver freezes. “What?”

Barry sighs and looks down at Felicity, who must be half-passed out to not want to offer an opinion on this. “They got in a fight earlier, here. It was, um, pretty bad I guess.”

Oliver combs his fingers through her hair and gives Barry a suspicious look. “So you let her drink this much right after she broke up with her boyfriend?”

Barry’s eyes widen. “I got here an hour ago, I was just here to witness the aftermath! She and Cooper were gonna come to a party at Caitlin’s place, and then they came here instead because Cooper wanted to talk to her about something, um, I’m assuming that’s when they broke up, by the time we met up with them she was already, pretty, um… well, it’s her first big breakup, right? Kinda understandable.”

“Yeah,” Oliver mutters. He sighs and slides his hands up Felicity’s sides to hook them under her arms. “Felicity? Felicity, wake up.”

“Stop _yelling_ ,” she mumbles. 

“Felicity, it’s Oliver,” he says softly. “Barry called me, it’s time to go.”

She lifts her head and her eyes are watery and red behind her glasses. “Oliver?”

“Hey,” he murmurs. “Can you stand up?”

She blinks at him and a mascara tinted tear rolls down her cheek. “What’re you doing here?”

“I called him,” Barry says gently. “Remember?”

She looks miserably at Oliver. “I threw up.”

He bites back a, _that’s what you get for drinking so much_. “I know.”

“I threw up _in front of Barry,_ ” she stage whispers.

“I’m sure he still likes you,” Oliver tells her. “C’mon, the car is waiting.”

She lets out a long, weary sigh. “Okay.”

Oliver pops up from his crouch and holds his hands out to Felicity, she uses Barry as leverage to pull herself up, takes one shaky step off the bench, and collapses into Oliver’s open arms.

“Oh,” she says in a tiny voice as he scoops her up. “ I think - I’m very drunk.”

“Yep,” he agrees through gritted teeth, and tilts his head towards the car. “Barry, you mind?”

“Yep, on it!”

Barry rushes ahead of him to open the door to the backseat so Oliver can lower Felicity into it and slide in after her. 

“Thanks,” Oliver mutters.

“Sure.” Barry leans into the car a little and holds out his hand for Oliver to shake before taking his jacket back. “Feel better Felicity.”

Felicity mumbles something and tips her head back against the headrest, eyes half shut. Oliver shrugs and reaches for the door handle, looking up at an earnest Barry. “Thanks man,” he says, trying to sound more sincere this time. “For calling me.”

“Oh, no problem.” Barry smiles and steps back onto the sidewalk. “Get home safe.”

“Thanks, you too.” Oliver shuts the door and collapses back into the seat, and then leans sideways to do Felicity’s seatbelt for her.

The driver turns around and curls her lip at Felicity. “If she pukes in my car it costs double.”

Oliver scowls. “She won’t.”

“I guess we’ll see,” she comments.

“Hey, Felicity,” Oliver murmurs, leaning down towards her. “Is my place okay?”

“Whatever,” she sighs, and tips her head onto his shoulder.

He texts Sara during the drive to his building to let her know Felicity’s going to crash at his place tonight so Sara doesn’t get worried when she comes home to an empty apartment. Laurel and Sara used to live together but when the accident happened last summer Laurel moved out before Oliver and Sara were even back in the country, and when the semester started in the fall Felicity moved into Laurel’s old room.

When they pull up to his building Oliver has to carry Felicity out of the car, her arms around his neck as he manages to dig his keys out of his pocket and get his door open. She’s not asleep exactly but she’s pretty out of it and she doesn’t seem like she’s about to throw up so he carries her to the elevator and holds her all the way up to the penthouse, opens the door and moves around the dark foyer, Tommy must still be out. Oliver turns left down the hallway that leads to his bedroom, Felicity small and warm in his arms.

He doesn’t bother turning on the light in his room, he deposits Felicity on the edge of his bed and crouches down on the floor to slide off her heels. She slumps over sideways, Oliver lines her shoes up next to the foot of his California king bed and hovers near Felicity.

“I’m gonna get you some water, okay?” he tells her.

“M’kay,” she mumbles.

Oliver stops to kick off his loafers before going down the hallway back past the foyer into the open concept kitchen and living room. He taps the switch on the side of the kitchen island and the lights under the cabinets come on in a soft glow, just enough light for him to see so he can get a glass from one of the cabinets and fill it with water from the fridge filter. He thinks to get the bottle of ibuprofen he and Tommy keep in the drawer with all their vitamins and jars of protein powder next to the sink, shakes two tablets into his hand and takes them back to Felicity with the water.

She’s curled up on the edge of his bed on top of the covers half asleep, the skirt of her dress riding up her thighs; her glasses rest on the nightstand and her little bag is on the floor, wedged between the bed frame and the wall.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Can you sit up for a second?”

She groans but manages to push herself up and swing her legs over the edge of the bed. Oliver tries to get her to take the pills but she can barely hold her head up, he ends up having her open her mouth and places them right on her tongue before holding the glass to her lips and carefully tipping it back until Felicity swallows. Oliver sets the glass down on the nightstand and looks down at her dress, the little straps that criss-cross over her back, she can’t be comfortable in that.

“Do you want to borrow a shirt?” he asks.

“I just wanna go to sleep,” she whines, and collapses back onto his bed.

Oliver sighs. “Okay. I’m just gonna go brush my teeth.”

“‘Kay.”

Oliver goes into the bathroom and shuts the door before switching on the light. He has to cover his eyes for a few seconds until they adjust to the light, then strips down to his boxer briefs and stuffs his clothes in the hamper. He splashes a little cold water over his face and brushes his teeth, uses the toilet, walks his hands and goes back to his room. Felicity’s lying on her stomach, one bare foot dangling off the bed. Oliver walks over to the floor-to-ceiling windows that are opposite the bed, displaying a killer view of downtown, and shuts the curtains so the sun won’t wake them up in the morning.

He walks around to the other side of the bed and flips the covers back before climbing onto the mattress. He thinks about leaving Felicity where she is but then he feels bad so he leans over to touch her shoulder. “Hey, roll over for a second.”

He’s rewarded with a barely audible moan, he slides closer to her where she’s face down on one of the pillows, hooks his hands under her arms, and rolls her over towards him so he can push back his comforter all the way and get her under it with him before pulling it up to their shoulders. She shivers and curls over, Oliver stretches out in his back and turns his head towards her; she’s lying in the fetal position, tears sliding down her face.

“Felicity,” he murmurs helplessly.

“We broke up,” she whimpers, and presses the back of her hand to her mouth as she chokes back a sob.

“Yeah, I know.” Oliver works his left arm under her shoulders and pulls her to his side. 

She turns her face into him, crying against his chest, and Oliver feels like each tear is piercing him right in the heart. He wraps his other arm around her and kisses the top of her head, rubs her back, pretends he doesn’t see wipe her nose on a pillowcase.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispers, even though he doesn’t know why they broke up, if she’s crying because she’s sad or for some other reason.

She mumbles something unintelligible that sounds vaguely like _maybe,_ all slurred, like she’s falling asleep and crying and talking at once.

Oliver cups her cheek and rubs his thumb under her eyes. “You’re gonna feel like shit tomorrow.”

“Mmm.” Felicity tilts her head back slightly like she agrees with him.

“You need me to set an alarm for you?”

She blinks heavily at him, brow furrowed. “Is… Sun… Sun…” -

“Yeah, tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“No alarm,” she sighs, and closes her eyes.

“You want to go to sleep?”

“Mhmm.”

“Wake me up if you need anything, okay?”

“Mmm.”

“You aren’t even gonna remember this in the morning, are you?”

“Mmm.”

“Okay.” He trails his fingertips down her arm. “Goodnight Felicity.”

She snuggles into him, the fabric of her dress scratching his bare chest. “G’night, Ol’ver.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Felicity gets her first POV chapter!

_Oh, be my once in a lifetime_  
_Lying on your chest_  
_In my party dress_  
_I'm a fucking mess_  
\- Lana Del Rey, Love Song

Felicity wakes up feeling like she’s been run over. Everything in her body hurts, all the way down to her hair follicles, her face is mashed into a pillow and her mouth is terribly dry. She tries to remember what happened to her but all she can really focus on is how hungover she is and oh god, this bed is not her bed, it’s _way_ too comfortable and expensive feeling to be her bed, she knows this bed, this is -

“Morning, sunshine.” There’s an Oliver shaped blur standing in the doorway when she lifts her head.

Felicity groans. “What time is it?”

“A little after noon.” Oliver ambles over to her, a mug in one hand. “How’re you feeling?”

“Like shit.”

“Told you.”

“Huh?”

He shakes his head. “Nevermind.”

“Is that coffee?”

“Yeah, you want some?”

“Yes please.”

Oliver hands her the mug and she can only take a few sips before her stomach clenches. “Thanks,” she mumbles, and hands it back to him.

Oliver leans over to put the mug down on the nightstand. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I mean, I have a terrible hangover and there’s like a _minor_ chance that I might puke which I feel like I already did although the actual memory is pretty fuzzy and I’m sure I look as disgusting as I feel right now, and I’m definitely a little humiliated over whatever I did or said last night but yeah, I’m okay.”

His lips twitch. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Her voice cracks, betraying what she thought was a semi-decent facade. “Totally fine,” she insists anyway, and starts to cry.

“Felicity.” Oliver drops down into a crouch in front of her. “It’s okay, c’mere.”

Up close like this she can see that Oliver’s hair is damp, his skin is warm and smells like the Dior Sauvage shower gel she’s seen in his shower. She presses her face into his chest and Oliver wraps his arms around her. She’s freezing in her stupid party dress, the straps feel like they’ve been cutting into her shoulders all night and her hair must be knotted to hell, she feels nauseous and gross and sad and it feels good, in a pathetic sort of way, to fall apart while Oliver holds her.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks gently.

“No,” she sniffs. “I’m gonna need way more caffeine for that.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Fair enough. You want to take a shower? I can make us hangover brunch.”

She lifts her head hopefully, Oliver’s hangover brunches are legendary. “Really?” she asks weepily.

Oliver brushes back some hair from her cheek. “Yeah, I think you’ve earned one.”

She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand. “What are the chances you have any makeup remover in your bathroom?”

He shrugs. “Laurel might’ve left some in her drawer in the bathroom when we broke up, I can check.”

Felicity follows Oliver into his attached bathroom and watches him pull the bottom drawer under the sink open. “Here, you can use whatever you need.”

She shifts around him to look down at the drawer and her mouth drops open. “Oliver, is this some, like, complimentary toiletries drawer for all your one night stands?”

His brow furrows. “My _what?_ ”

She crouches down on the floor and starts digging through everything. “I mean, you have dry shampoo, cotton balls, a pack of hair ties, makeup remover, _yes!_ , an unopened pack of razors, really nice face wash, deep conditioner samples, this is ridiculous.”

“Felicity, it’s just Laurel’s old stuff. I don’t like, keep things here for random girls, how much ass do you think I’m getting?”

She shrugs and holds up a box of Tampax. “Enough for you to keep an emergency stash of tampons in your bathroom out of common courtesy?”

“After we broke up the last time she was so mad at me she didn’t even want her stuff back. I guess I sort of forgot about it,” he explains.

“Oh.” Felicity feels a little bit bad about her assumption but then again it’s not like she’s the one who gave him a rep for being a total playboy.

“You can use whatever you want,” Oliver tells her. “If you don’t mind using Laurel’s stuff.”

“You know, normally I’d feel weird about borrowing products from one of your exes but Laurel’s my stepsister and one of the things about sisters is that it’s basically a rule that you have to steal each other’s stuff so I guess it evens out.”

“Okay. Do you want me to leave you some clothes to borrow?”

“Thanks,” she says gratefully, and looks up at him, then to the shower. “Why did you let me get on the floor, now I don’t want to stand back up.”

He sticks his hand out towards her. “How much did you drink last night, anyway?”

“Too much, obviously. I feel like there are tiny people inside my head banging on my skull with their tiny fists.”

“Poor baby,” he says unsympathetically, and pulls her to her feet. “Take a shower, I’ll go make food.”

She leans against the sink and braces her hands against her temples. “Okay.”

Oliver hesitates and then he puts his hands over hers and kisses her forehead. “I’ll get some ibuprofen out for you.”

She blinks up at him. “Okay. Thanks.”

He lets his hands drop and starts to step back. “Sure.”

“Oh, wait, Oliver?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you, um… would you mind unzipping my dress for me?”

“Oh.” Oliver swallows audibly and steps forward so he’s in front of her again. “Yeah, turn around.”

She turns and rests her hands lightly on the edge of the sink, head tipped down a little. Oliver’s hands slide over her neck to gather up her hair and drape it over one shoulder and Felicity’s never realized how big they really are before, how much of her skin he can blanket with just a touch. He braces his left hand against her back and slowly drags the zipper down; when Felicity looks at him in the mirror he’s looking down at his hands on her back, and she actually wonders if she’s still a little drunk because _wow,_ Oliver’s hands should not feel so good on her.

“Thanks,” she says a little shakily, and Oliver nods at her in the mirror, hands resting on her shoulders for a moment before he walks away and turns on the fan for her on his way out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Felicity looks back at her reflection, wincing at the mascara trails running down her cheeks. She yanks down the straps of her dress and kicks it off, drops the bundle of fabric in Oliver’s hamper and leaves her black lace thong on the counter next to the sink. She takes her makeup off with Laurel’s makeup remover and washes her face, gets out a new razor and slips off the plastic guard, sets it on the ledge in the shower and starts the water. She digs through Laurel’s drawer again and mentally cheers when she finds shaving cream. She takes it into the shower with her and stands under the water when it gets hot, groaning out loud at how good it feels.

She uses Oliver’s body wash and that alone makes her feels better, just getting clean. She shaves with the razor and Laurel’s shaving cream, washes her hair with the shampoo she finds on the shelf next to Oliver’s soap, rinses off and stays in the shower until the hot water starts to go cold. She steps out and dries herself off with a clean towel she finds folded on a rack above the hamper, turns her underwear inside out and rolls the thong back on. Felicity squeezes the excess water out of her hair over the sink, works out the knots with her fingers and rubs on a little moisturizer on her face from the jar of Clinique she finds in the cabinet above the sink, Laurel was clearly a real influence on him in the grooming department.

When she goes back into Oliver’s room one of his old Starling prep sweatshirts is lying out on the bed for her, grey with burgundy lettering over the chest. Felicity tugs it on and it falls to the top of her thighs, it’s soft and worn and smells like Oliver and well, if Felicity takes an extra few seconds to bury her nose in the collar, no one is around to see her. She grabs her glasses from the nightstand, slips them over her face and goes out of his room to find Oliver.

He’s sitting on a stool at the kitchen island, brunch laid out before him and Felicity wasn’t sure she’d be able to eat with the level ten hangover she’s dealing with but her mouth waters as she gets closer - there’s a French press full of coffee sitting between their two plates, which are both loaded with thick whole wheat toast slathered with mashed avocado and scrambled eggs, Oliver even put two tablets of ibuprofen on a napkin for her next to a glass of water, and it’s so casually thoughtful that it makes her burst into tears.

“Felicity!” Oliver jumps off his stool and rushes over to her, looking alarmed. “What, what is it?”

“Nothing,” she sobs. “It’s nothing, I’m sorry, you’re being so nice and I’m a mess.”

“Hey, you’re going through a breakup, you’re allowed to not be okay.” He puts one hand between her shoulder blades and gently leads her to sit down at the island. “Talk to me, what happened?”

Felicity stares down at the island, next to her plate is a glass of water and another glass with tomato juice in it and a celery stick poking out. “Did you make bloody marys?”

“Yeah.” He passes her a napkin so she can wipe her eyes. “Now tell me what happened with Cooper.”

Felicity scoops up the two ibuprofen pills and tosses them back with water. “We broke up.”

Oliver rolls his eyes. “No shit, I mean, what happened that made you get that drunk?”

Shame makes her curl into herself. “Can I have some coffee please?”

He looks a little annoyed at her deflection but he still pours her a mug and slides a container of vanilla creamer across the island to her. She pours it into her coffee and cups the mug in her hands, swirls it around a little and takes a sip, sighing in relief at the impending caffeine rush.

Next to her Oliver looks pensive. “You know I’m only asking because I care about you, right?”

She takes another sip of coffee. “Yeah, I know.”

Oliver picks up a piece of his toast. “So?”

She sighs loudly. “I don’t know. We got into a fight.”

“About?” he presses.

She can’t help it, the memory makes her flinch. “It’s complicated.”

“Felicity.”

She presses her lips together. “You promise you won’t say I told you so?”

His eyebrows knit together. “Okay.”

She takes another sip of coffee, delaying the inevitable. “I think… maybe you were right.”

“About what?” he asks carefully.

She takes a deep breath, remembering the rush of rage she’d felt last night, the realization that he could walk away from her, just like that.

“He’s not a good guy,” she says softly, hating that her voice shakes.

Oliver reaches over and rests his hand on top of hers. “What makes you think that?”

“Let’s just say it turns out we have very different ideologies,” she says bitterly.

Oliver stares at her. “I have no idea what that means.”

“Look, we started talking about our, um, shared, ahem, _hobbies_....”

Oliver rolls his eyes. “I know you guys hack Felicity, it’s not like it’s exactly a secret.”

“Ugh, right, fine. Anyway, he’s been getting more into that hacktivist group” -

“Huh?”

“Like hack and activism,” she explains.

He shoots her a look that clearly reads, _nerd._ “Okay, so?”

“So they’ve gone a little hardcore and I don’t know, I guess I’d rather use my magic computer powers for good and not like, _chaos_ , and we started arguing about it and at first it was like, philosophical, but then it got personal and I don’t know, we were drinking and I didn’t think we going to actually _break up_ over it but then he said if I didn’t agree with his _vision_ maybe we weren’t right for each other and then I was like, yeah, I guess not, and then he was like, fine, and it just kinda happened before we even realized we were doing it and then I kind of freaked out and did way too many shots back to back and then Iris and Barry and Caitlin showed up and that’s about where everything gets fuzzy.”

“Felicity you aren’t like, in _trouble_ right?”

“Huh?”

“With the… hacking stuff.”

“What? No, it’s not like that, I swear!”

Oliver looks like he doesn’t totally believe her. “You sure?”

“Yes,” she says firmly, Cooper’s little group of hacktivists have a certain disregard for the rules but they’re not, like, actual _criminals_. “You don’t have to worry about me, okay?”

“If you don’t want me to worry about you then call me before you drink so much next time,” he shoots back.

She shrinks in embarrassment. “I’m not the one who called you.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m sorry,” she says in a small voice, and to her horror she starts crying again.

“Hey, don’t do that, it’s okay.” Oliver stretches his arm out to wrap it around Felicity’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to give you a hard time.”

“I don’t even know why I’m crying,” she mumbles, letting her head tilt until it’s resting on his shoulder.

He leans his head down and gently bumps his cheek against the top of her head. “It’s okay to be sad. Even if Cooper was kinda a douche.”

“Yeah, but he was my douche,” Felicity says, and Oliver snorts, and then bursts out laughing.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he cracks up, taking his arm back so he can cover his face in his hands, and then Felicity is laughing too.

“It’s not funny!” she wails, even though it’s clearly very funny because she and Oliver are both doubled over laughing. “Oh god, we are the _worst_.”

“Speak for yourself, I’m awesome.” Oliver takes a sip of coffee and nudges her plate a little closer to her. “He’s the one who’s the worst.”

“He’s not the worst.” Felicity doesn’t even know why she’s defending Cooper but it just feels right, she did choose to date him after all, it feels gross throwing him under the bus a mere twelve hours after their breakup. “I know I wasn’t like, madly in _love_ with him, but he wasn’t so bad.”

Oliver just rolls his eyes. “Not so bad? If that’s the best thing you can say about the guy, good riddance.”

“You never liked him,” Felicity comments moodily.

“Gee, how could you tell?”

“Well you just enjoy sprawling on your throne of vindication while I suffer through my first major breakup then,” she snaps.

Oliver sighs and drags his fork through his eggs. “I don’t want to fight with you about this.”

“We aren’t fighting!” They argue sometimes, sure, and they’ve been known to snipe at each other, especially when they’re sleep deprived or hungry, but they don’t usually _fight_. “We’re bantering.”

Oliver slumps a little. “It feels like we’re fighting.”

Felicity bites her lip. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

Oliver glances sideways at her. “Me either.”

“Okay.”

He nudges her. “You gonna eat your food or just stare at it?”

“I’m working myself up to it.”

He squints at her. “How hungover are you?”

“Enough that just looking at that is making me a little nauseous.” She points to her Bloody Mary.

Oliver shakes his head and pushes the glass closer to her. “No, seriously, you should drink it, alcohol is good for hangovers.”

“That can’t be right.”

He shrugs. “I think it’s like, science.”

“But that makes _no sense_.”

“Maybe being tipsy cancels out the hangover. I don’t know, it always works for me.”

“Okay,” Felicity says hesitantly.

She honestly expects to gag at her first sip but to her surprise she can’t taste the alcohol and she ends up taking a few gulps as Oliver gives her a knowing smile.

“Not bad, right?” he comments.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the hangover king, congratulations.”

“I’ll take a, thank you for taking care of me and my hangover, you’re the best friend ever.”

She leans sideways and bumps her shoulder against his. “Thank you for taking care of me and my hangover, you’re the best friend ever.”

He rolls his eyes. “Gee, don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”

Felicity smacks his arm, he smirks at her and everything feels a little more normal again.

*

By the time they finish eating and move over to the other side of the frankly ridiculously big open concept room (you’d think Felicity would be used to all the obscene wealth she grew up around by now, but nope, not really) it’s almost two in the afternoon. Felicity snuggles into one end of the huge leather sectional couch as Oliver stretches out on the other end and digs around for the remote.

“You wanna hang out for awhile?” he asks.

“Okay,” she answers, because it’s a Sunday and she finished all her readings for Monday already and she’s single now and has nothing to do anyway.

Oliver nudges her calf with his toe and turns on the tv. “Don’t sound so excited about it.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sorry. Yeah.” Oliver flicks through the cable guide. “Hey, there’s a Dr. Who marathon, you’re into that, right?”

Felicity blinks at him, she wasn’t really aware up until this point that Oliver actually listened to her when she rambled about tv shows. “Uh… yeah. Cool. Great.”

“Okay.” Oliver changes the channel to it and they land in the middle of a random episode. “Hey, uh, I’m gonna make another drink I think, you want one?”

“Um…” She's one drink in anyway and she doesn’t have to be anywhere for the rest of the day, but she feels a little sick whenever she remembers last night. “Maybe just a light one.”

“Okay.” Oliver lopes over to the bar and pours himself some kind of expensive whiskey before going over to the fridge. “How do you feel about a screwdriver?”

“Okay, but Oliver, seriously, please don’t get me drunk, I can’t do two nights in a row, my liver needs a break.”

Oliver’s hand rests on the fridge. “Do you just want orange juice?”

Felicity bites her lip, there’s something about Oliver going with whatever she says that makes her want to do the opposite. Or maybe it’s the breakup, maybe something about that fight with Cooper shook something loose in her, some desire to push more, go a little wild.

“No,” she answers. “Just, like, maybe don’t go over two shots?”

“Of course,” Oliver agrees, and mixes exactly two shots of Grey Goose with the cold pressed orange juice he and Tommy get from an organic health food store that costs $12 a bottle.

“So,” he says as he walks back over with their drinks. “Scale of one to ten on the heartbreak meter, how’re you doing right now?”

Felicity reaches out to take her drink from him. “Thanks. Um… I don’t know, I… I don’t want to get back together with him but I’m still bummed out about it. I don’t know if that makes sense.”

“Sure it does,” he answers. “You’re allowed to be sad that something important to you is over even if it’s better for you in the long run.”

“Got any tips on how to move on?” she asks jokingly. “As the resident break-up expert.”

“Ouch!” Oliver laughs. “I’m not that bad.”

Felicity rolls her eyes. “Laurel, Samantha, Laurel, McKenna, Laurel, hey I’m sensing a pattern there, and those are just the major ones” -

“Alright, alright, I get your point.” Oliver takes a big sip of his drink. “And for the record, yes.”

She takes another sip of her screwdriver, Oliver’s vodka is always so expensive and smooth, nothing like the cheap shit she and Caitlin used to buy last year at the gas station that notoriously didn’t card. “Yes what?”

“Your question. For your information, I have a surefire method for getting over exes.”

“A _method?_ ” She narrowly avoids spraying her drink across the couch.

“Yeah, it’s like, this guide I developed for myself to get over girls.”

She can’t help it, she starts laughing. “Oh yeah? Did you get it trademarked? Oliver Queen’s Surefire Guide to Getting Over Your Ex?”

“Just for that, I’m not gonna tell you.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“I would and I am.”

“Oliver!” Felicity whines. 

“Okay, okay. You’re already doing step one.”

She looks down at her glass. “Drink?”

“Fuck yeah.”

Felicity nods, thinking back to last night. “Clearly I’m on it. What’s next?”

Oliver stretches back and kicks his legs up on the coffee table. “Mope.”

Felicity grins, grabs a chenille throw that's folded over the back of the couch and spreads it out around her. “Awesome. I’m ready to mope the eff out.”

“You’re supposed to be sad,” Oliver stage whispers. “It’s not moping if it’s fun.”

She shrugs. “Think I cried the sad out already. Hey, maybe I’m ready to skip to step three!”

Oliver smirks and turns towards the screen. “You’re not ready for step three.”

“What does _that_ mean?”

“It’s a method for a reason, Felicity,” he says. “One thing at a time.”

*

Tommy comes back to the penthouse a little after four, when he sees them on the couch he gives Oliver an exasperated sort of look. “Hey, what’re you guys doing?”

“Moping!” Felicity tells him cheerfully. She isn’t really drunk but Oliver’s given her enough alcohol to have a nice steady buzz going on.

Tommy raises an eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to be, like, sad when you mope? Isn’t that sort of the definition of mope?”

“Well, the technical definition of mope is to be dejected and apathetic,” she tells him.

“And you are…?”

“Only a teeny bit drunk and not like, heart broken _per se_ , but sort of like, just, _argghhhhhhhh,_ you know?”

“She and Cooper broke up,” Oliver translates.

“Oh.” Tommy nods. “My condolences.” He walks over behind the couch and bends down to kiss her forehead. “You can do way better than him anyway.”

She rolls her eyes. “So I’ve been told.”

Oliver holds his hands up in surrender. “Hey, the people have spoken, deal with it.”

“ _Anyway_.” Tommy looks pointedly at Oliver. “It’s almost four-thirty.”

Oliver squints. “So?”

Tommy pinches the bridge of his nose. “So it’s Sunday.”

“Hey, you finally learned the days of the week!”

“Ollie!”

“What?”

“We had a deal. Sundays and Wednesdays I get the living room for my Microeconomics study group from four-thirty to seven.”

A slow look of understanding spreads over Oliver’s face. “Oh yeah.”

“Yeah,” Tommy repeats. “So would you and Felicity mind moving step two of your stupid breakup guide to your room?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Ooo, Tommy!” Felicity twists over the side of the couch to look up at him. “Do you know what step three is? Oliver wouldn't tell me” -

“Don’t tell her!” Oliver shouts.

Tommy narrows his eyes. “Why not?”

Oliver looks at him like it’s totally obvious. “You think she’s ready for step three?”

Tommy takes one look at her and chuckles. “Yeah no, not even close.”

“Right?” 

“Bullshit,” Felicity declares, because she’s feeling just a little drunk and therefore cocky. “I'm totally gonna be ready for step three soon.”

“Sure you are, doll,” Tommy snickers. “Now scoot, unless you want all my study buddies to check out those gorgeous legs.”

“We’re going, we’re going.” Oliver helps her up and quickly tops off their drinks before leading her to his room and shutting the door closed.

“So,” he says. “Movie?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Oliver grabs his laptop from his desk and carries it over to his bed, where they usually watch movies when they’re hanging out in his room. “Whatcha in the mood for?”

Felicity bends down to grab her bag where she tossed it last night and pulls out her phone, the battery’s at ten percent and she doesn’t have any texts or missed calls from Cooper, not that she really wants to talk to him but it still kind of hurts anyway. “Something bloody.”

Oliver snorts. “I thought you weren’t upset anymore.”

“I’m not! I’m… I don’t know.” She sinks down on the edge of his bed and yanks the hem of his sweatshirt down so he can’t see her underwear. “I… I liked having a boyfriend. It was nice, you know?”

“Yeah,” Oliver answers softly. “That part can be really nice.”

“Yeah.” She takes a sip of her drink and sets it down on the nightstand. “I guess I have to get used to being single again.”

“It’s not so bad,” Oliver says.

“Yeah, but you don’t get cuddles on demand,” she points out. She’s always been independent, she’s never really felt like she _needed_ a guy in her life, but getting hugs on the daily was pretty awesome.

“Felicity…” There’s an expression on his face she can’t read, and then to her surprise Oliver holds his arms out to her. “C’mere.”

It’s not like she ever turns down a hug from Oliver, the guy is all muscles and expensive cologne and when she scoots across the bed so he can put his arms around her it basically feels like she’s being wrapped in a very warm fantasy, she snuggles her cheek right against that spot where his shoulder and neck meet, greedily inhales his Oliver-smell as she lets her eyes shut.

“Felicity,” Oliver murmurs, and it’s a little exhilarating, being able to feel his chest expand as he takes a breath, the pound of his beating heart. “Anytime you need a hug you just come find me, okay?”

“Okay,” she mumbles. 

He combs his fingers through her hair. “You down for a Kill Bill marathon?”

She smiles against his chest. “Perfect.”

Oliver sets up the movie and rests his laptop on a throw pillow towards the foot of the bed, and he and Felicity get into their usual movie-watching positions - leaning back on the pillows stacked up against the headboard while holding their drinks, a good foot of space between them because Oliver’s bed is so big that they can both stretch out on each side without touching each other.

For the first time Felicity finds herself wishing his bed was a bit smaller.

It’s nice anyway, being able to sink into the thick down pillows and sip at her drink as Uma Thurman appears on screen, shaking and panting and whimpering, gashes and trails of blood dark against her skin. Felicity’s not typically one for Tarantino-style gore but it feels cathartic, she can relate a little, remembering the blunt knife’s edge of betrayal she’d felt when she realized that Cooper was choosing those people over her, that they were never going to achieve all the great things he said they’d do together one day. 

How much it hurt, to be casually disposed of like that, like she was just a silly naive blonde in a tight dress who couldn’t possibly understand him, the things he wants, the barriers he’s willing to cross regardless of the rules. It scared her a little when his eyes had glazed over as he ranted, the depth of his passion a level of intensity that Felicity couldn’t possibly compete with.

Wasn’t that the problem? That she didn’t want to?

Maybe that’s not fair though. Is it even reasonable, she wonders, to expect someone to ever put her, what she needs, above themselves and their personal desires? Her father certainly hadn’t, and her mother hadn’t either, not really, she’d fell into a whirlwind love affair with Quentin before the ink on the divorce papers were dry, moved her and Felicity to Starling halfway through second grade even though Felicity needed time to adjust to her dad leaving, she was definitely not ready to get thrown into a new house, with two older sisters who made their displeasure at her sudden arrival painfully obvious, and a new school where everyone was a stranger. 

Things got slightly better when she tested out of her class and got moved up a grade, where the material was slightly more challenging, but even that had really just been a distraction, something for her to focus on, a way to isolate herself with books and technology while she built a careful wall around her heart so she’d never feel that kind of hurt again. 

Oliver’s the only person she’s ever let over that wall really, and it’s because he was there before she built it, he always took the time to say hi to her when he was over at her house, he held her hand at her mom and Quentin’s wedding when they’d announced the family at the beginning of the reception and she’d been so terrified of all those people staring at her that she’d wanted to run away, he once walked from his middle school to meet her outside Starling Elementary every afternoon for a week straight when he’d found out that a few boys in her class had been slamming into her on the playground during recess, on purpose, to see how much force it took for the scrawny little brainiac to fall down, and after they saw her walking off with him never bothered her again.

But they aren’t kids anymore, and she isn’t a scared little girl who needs Oliver to hold her hand. She’s an adult now, and her thoughts and feelings are a swirling mess and she doesn’t know what she needs. She always thought that breakups were straightforward - you got sad, and did things like get too drunk, eat ice cream all day, lie in bed watching bad reality tv, cry in the shower while blasting love songs, but she doesn’t really get the appeal of any of it right now. Getting that drunk last night only made her feel like shit and she doesn’t even really feel sad anymore, not after she’d gotten after the initial shock of it.

It’s a little confusing for her, because she definitely thought she _would_ feel sad still. She meant what she told Oliver, she and Cooper weren’t in love, they hadn’t gotten that serious yet, but they’d been dating for a few months, they were relationship-official. And she’d been happy, it had been new and exciting and yeah, they were both busy with classes and friends, it wasn’t like, an epic love story kind of thing, but - she’d liked it. It was nice. He’d mattered to her, she hadn't necessarily let him all the way over the wall but she’d cracked a window, they were getting somewhere, and then it just imploded, in one night, without her really anticipating it at all.

She’d woken up yesterday morning with a boyfriend and went to sleep last night wasted in Oliver’s bed, single and crying. So why, instead of lying here being sad and missing Cooper, is she watching Oliver out of the corner of her eye, secretly craving another hug but a little too full of pride to ask?

She’s not even really drunk, she isn’t devastated and in need of serious comfort, she doesn’t have any excuse other than being in Oliver’s arms is the best feeling in the world and kind of rare to boot - he’s affectionate with her, sure, they’ve always had a special little thing in that way, but he also dated her oldest stepsister for years, he ran away with Sara for the weekend and almost died while also managing to cause an international news scandal, he’s older than her, he’s so off limits in so many ways.

She’s always been fine with that though. It’s just the way things have always been. Oliver is her hot older friend who dates her sisters and other hot older woman, and she’s the nerdy younger kid who’s always trying and just managing to keep up with him. They’re friends, only friends. 

And she’s fine with that. 

She has to be. Oliver’s one of the most important people in her life, his friendship matters more to her than almost anything. Felicity isn’t going to do anything to screw it up, no way.

She and Oliver are friends, just friends, and that’s going to have to be enough for her.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up right where the last chapter left off, it was originally part of Chapter 2 but I had to cut it into two chapters due to length, so we are still in Felicity’s POV and we’ll switch back to Oliver’s next week. In case you missed it in my first authors note, this chapter is where the real sexual content starts so - smut ahead, readers.

_You made me feel like there's something that I never knew_  
_I wanted_  
-Lana Del Rey, The Next Best American Record

When the movie ends Oliver gets the second one cued up and hits pause. “You interested in ordering takeout? I’m getting hungry.”

Felicity finishes the last of her drink and sets the glass down. “Sure.”

“Pizza?”

She gives him a small smile. “Okay.”

Oliver’s already dialing. “The usual?”

Why does is make her heart beat a little quicker, that Oliver knows how she likes her pizza? They’ve been friends for over a decade, of course he knows her pizza order. It doesn’t mean anything.

“Felicity?” Oliver glances sideways at her.

“Yeah, sounds good,” she confirms.

They start the movie and watch until the delivery guy texts Oliver’s phone from the lobby, he gets off the bed and slips his feet into a pair of Adidas slides, sticks his keys and phone into the pocket of his sweatpants and glances at her, where she’s sitting on his bed in his sweatshirt and no pants.

“Uh, I can run down and get it if you want to stay here,” he offers.

“Okay, thanks.” Normally she’d offer to go with him but she doesn’t really have any interest in parading half-naked past Tommy’s study group or getting up and borrowing more clothes from Oliver just to get a pizza when he doesn’t really need her help anyway.

He shoots her a half-smile as he snags her empty glass before loping out of the room. Felicity watches him go, a strange kind of longing feeling in her chest that she doesn’t really understand. Maybe she’s just projecting onto him, using Oliver, her safe person, to process what happened with Cooper. 

But that isn’t really what it feels like.

It’s more like realizing that maybe Cooper blinded her a little, maybe she was so distracted by him and the drama of falling for someone that she missed something that was happening right in front of her. 

She knows Oliver’s changed, he and Sara both came back last summer wrecked in their own way. He’s serious now, he’s been trying hard to get his GPA up all year, he even cut his hair. But to her he’d still been the guy who cheated on her stepsister with her other stepsister, the guy who did things like have flings with actual, literal princesses and got arrested for public intoxication, someone sexy and maybe just a little dangerous. But she’s realizing now, that those are all things Oliver _used_ to do, he’s not really like that anymore, or at least not since school started up back in the fall.

And she hadn’t even noticed, because she’d been too focused on keeping up with her grades and her projects and Cooper to notice.

He comes back holding a pizza box, a roll of paper towels, fresh drinks for both of them and a couple bottles of water tucked under his arm.

“Wow, full service,” she comments lightly, reaching out to take a water bottle and her drink.

“Only the best for you,” Oliver says, and it should sound like a joke, like how they usually tease and banter, but to her it reads sincere in a way that makes her watch him cross around to the other side of the bed, gently set the pizza box next to his laptop before sitting down next to her.

“Thanks,” she says softly, taking a slice he holds out for her on a paper towel.

“Sure.” Oliver hits play on his laptop and turns the volume up. “They’re starting to head out,” he explains. “Think Tommy’s going with them.”

“So we don’t need to worry about distracting him with all the screaming?” Felicity gestures to the movie, where someone is currently dying a very violent death on screen. 

Oliver laughs and picks up a slice of pizza for himself. “That is a perk of having a roommate who goes out almost every night.”

“It’s a _Sunday_.”

“It’s Tommy.”

“Good point.”

Felicity eats two slices in a row and drops her crumpled, grease stained paper towel into the box, chugs back half of her water, grabs her drink and cradles it in her hands before taking a sip. She’s managed to stay buzzed all afternoon without tipping over into flat-out drunk and it’s nice, she has the familiar warmth and looseness in her body that she associates with alcohol but she feels totally in control of all her faculties, as clear headed as someone who’s going through a breakup can be anyway.

She has a sneaking feeling that she wouldn’t already be drinking like this at nineteen if she’d grown up differently, if her mom had never met Quentin and stayed in Vegas, or if she’d taken the financial hit and attended MIT (the hardest decision of her life and one she still thinks about) but she didn’t, she grew up in a house with a stepdad who had a drinking problem, a stepsister who’s becoming a fledgling alcoholic even if no will say it out loud, and former party boy Oliver. Hell, Sara bought Felicity a fifth of Malibu with her fake ID for Felicity’s sixteenth birthday and practically poured it down her throat in their shared bathroom at exactly midnight, Felicity never stood a chance.

“You done?” Oliver asks, and when she nods he closes the lid of the box and puts it down on the floor, takes a sip of whiskey and leans back against the pillows, eyes on the movie.

Felicity takes another sip of her drink, part of her wondering what exactly they’re supposed to do now. They’ve still got almost two hours of the movie to go and when it’s over she should probably go home. Right? She took over Oliver’s entire day and most of last night too, he probably would appreciate the break.

But by the time the movie ends and she’s finished her drink Oliver just looks at her empty glass and says, “Want a refill?”

Felicity blinks at him. It’s almost nine on a Sunday night, she has class starting at ten tomorrow, she really should go home, pound back a few glasses of water, get all her things ready for the morning and go to bed.

“Yeah, okay,” she says, her brain-to-mouth filter apparently a dirty traitor.

“Cool, be right back.” Oliver takes her glass and disappears, leaving Felicity alone in his room to wonder at what they’re doing, the possibility of sleeping over for a second night in a row.

She stops the rolling credits of the movie and backs out, scrolls through Oliver’s account and selects an animated comedy show at random, something she suspects is only really funny if you’re stoned but will serve as decent background tv, drinks some more water and idly looks across the room at Starling City glittering out the windows.

Oliver comes back and sets her drink on the nightstand. “I made it light,” he warns her.  
“You said you didn’t really want to get drunk, right?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Felicity offers him a smile as he climbs over her onto the bed, holding his whiskey up high so he doesn’t spill.

“How’re you doing?” he asks as he sits down, stretching his legs out and folding his free arm behind his head, so casual and gorgeous that it almost hurts.

“What’s step three?” she blurts out.

Oliver rolls his eyes. “Felicity.”

“Come on! I did the get shitfaced thing last night, I’ve sufficiently moped, c’mon, I wanna know.”

“Okay, fine.” He huffs out a breath and turns towards her as he sits up a little straighter. “Let’s just say, in my opinion the most effective way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”

Felicity stares at him. “Are you talking about having a one night stand?”

“Uh, yeah. Pretty much.” He shrugs and sips his drink. “Works every time.”

She feels a little dizzy. “Did you just tell me to get fucked?”

Oliver chokes on his whiskey and coughs, turning his face into the crook of his elbow. “Jesus Felicity.”

“You’re the one who just told me to have sex!”

“I didn’t tell you to have sex,” he mutters. “See, this is why you aren’t ready for step three.”

Felicity gulps her drink, forgetting that it’s mostly juice. “No, wow, I just, I’ve never, um, never really done that.”

“Had sex?” he snickers.

“Don’t be an ass.” She flicks the back of his hand. “You know what I mean. Excuse me for being a little surprised that you just basically endorsed me having casual sex with a stranger.”

“You don’t have to have sex with a stranger. You don’t have to have sex with anyone.”

Felicity tries to envision it. She’s not necessarily opposed to the idea in theory but she’s only slept with a few guys: her senior project partner at a spring fling afterparty in high school, that lacrosse player last year who ended up stalking her until Oliver dropped by his dorm room and said something to him. Cooper.

“I don’t know if I could go out and do that with like, some random guy I picked up at a club or something,” she muses. “I’ve never even picked up a guy at a club, period. But, um… it’s an interesting idea.”

“Interesting,” he repeats.

“Sure, I mean, I think I could kinda see how that would help, like, get your brain in gear. Like, moving on physically to help you move on mentally.”

Oliver scratches the back of his neck. “We could have sex.”

He says it so casually that it takes a second for the words to register, and when they do she’s sure she heard him wrong. “What?”

“I just meant…” Oliver looks a little unsure. “Like if you wanted to, but not with some random guy.”

“Um…” Felicity still isn’t sure she’s getting this. “Like - you and me, have sex?”

He shrugs. “Well, I’m definitely not a stranger. And I think it’s already been established that we’re attracted to each other.”

She chugs her drink until the glass is empty. “Okay, just so I’m sure I’m keeping up, are you offering to have sex with me tonight to help me get over my ex-boyfriend?”

Oliver tilts his head a little. “Uh, yeah, I guess so. I mean, only if you want to.”

“I have to pee!” she blurts out.

“Felicity” -

“I’ll be right back!” She leaps off the bed and runs to the bathroom, slams the door shut behind her and rests her back against it in shock.

What. The. Fuck.

She shuffles over to the toilet, yanks down her thong before sitting down and buries her head in her hands, reeling.

It’s not like she’s never thought about it, him, like that, Oliver’s been starring in her sexual fantasies since she was fourteen. Felicity always thought that her schoolgirl crush on him was something they’d all politely ignored for her benefit so as not to humiliate her, something no one took seriously, not even herself. It was absurd, the idea of them together, the first time he and Laurel started dating Felicity was only twelve, she never let herself think of him seriously like that. Private fantasies were just that, private, and not real, and she knew that, she’s always been satisfied with having his friendship, his support, she’s never let herself believe they could be more than what they are.

Until now.

It’s not exactly revelatory that Oliver wants to sleep with her - he told her to her face that he thought she was attractive, and the guy clearly loves sex in general, but the idea of it actually happening, Oliver, naked, _inside_ of her, is so surreal she doesn’t know how to process it.

She wipes really, _really_ well, just in case, flushes, pulls up her underwear and goes to the sink to wash her hands. In the mirror her hair tumbles past her shoulders in messy loose waves and her cheeks are a little pink from drinking all day. She tilts her head side to side, trying to imagine what Oliver sees, wonders when he stopped looking at her as the younger nerdy girl always tagging along after him. Oliver’s always been beautiful but it took Felicity a little longer to see her own beauty, when she was younger she used her small size to hide, and then in high school she dealt with her tumultuous emotions and deeply suppressed rage at her parents by expressing them through her dyed hair, her black eyeliner, her dark oversized wardrobe. She’s used to using her looks as a way to protect herself, to keep people from seeing the real her.

But Oliver’s always seen her anyway.

When she comes out of the bathroom Oliver’s put his laptop on his desk and he’s waiting on the edge of the bed. When he sees her he jumps up, hands in his pockets, looking a little worried.

“Hey, look, I’m sorry if” -

“Yes,” she says quickly.

His eyes widen. “Yes?”

Felicity takes a shaky, nervous inhale. “I mean, yes to the sex. If - if you still want to.”

Oliver’s staring at her like he can’t really believe it. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean, this is a one time thing right? Tomorrow we go back to being friends?”

“Right,” Oliver says. “Yeah, sure. Of course.”

“Okay.” Felicity tugs self-consciously on the hem of his sweatshirt. “So um… now what?”

“Felicity,” he says softly, and holds out his arms to her.

She walks to him on instinct, her heartbeat hammering in her ears. He cups her gently by the shoulders, a soft look on his face. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she murmurs.

“You okay?”

It makes her go a little floaty, the way he says it, so quietly but seriously too. “Yeah.”

Oliver smiles. “Good.”

“So, um, if we’re going to have sex, does that mean… can there be kissing?”

His smile deepens. “There can definitely be kissing.”

Her stomach flips. “Um, so, do I like” -

“Hey.” Oliver lifts one hand to cup her cheek and bends his head down a little so he can look right at her. “Stop thinking so hard, okay?”

She lets out a sigh. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry.” He runs his thumb along her cheekbone. “You nervous?”

“Um, you’re like an inch away from my face and you’re touching me and your voice is really sexy, so…” She cringes a little but Oliver laughs.

“You think I have a sexy voice?” 

He dips his head a little closer and for the first time she really understands what people mean when they say they feel weak in the knees. “I think you have a sexy everything,” she confesses.

“I think you’re sexy too,” he whispers.

“Oliver,” she breathes.

“Don’t worry, okay?” Oliver tucks her hair behind her ears. “I’ll take care of you.”

She remembers that she has hands and spreads them out over his hips. “I know you will.”

He tips his head down a little more, pauses, eyes flicking up to meet hers, and when she doesn’t back away he brushes his lips against her own. She goes soft all over, pressing her mouth against his as a shiver runs down her spine. She still can’t totally believe that this is happening right now, that Oliver is kissing her with careful determination, his hands going to her glasses to slide them off for her.

“Thanks,” she murmurs, watching him fold them up and gently set them down on the nightstand.

Oliver gives her an easy smile and holds out his hand to her. “Can I interest you in a bed?”

Right. A bed. Because she and Oliver are going to have sex.

How is this her life right now?

It’s not like she’s complaining, Oliver’s wearing a thin tee shirt and sweatpants and still puts male models to shame, and he’s looking her in a way she’s only daydreamed about - like Felicity is all he sees, like he’s mentally planning out all the things he’s going to do to her tonight and the thing is, Felicity’s seen women do things that could be considered legitimately mentally unstable just to get a sliver of Oliver’s attention, and wow, she never really thought about the fact that it would be an ego boost, to have a man who can make the average woman in Starling City drop her panties with just a smile make Felicity feel like she’s the only woman in the world right now with merely a look and soft kisses.

She isn’t sure how she feels about that reaction but right now, with Oliver looking at her like this, she can’t really make herself care.

“Felicity?” Oliver prompts.

“Yeah, yes! Bed. Definitely. That, that makes sense. You know. For the sex.”

Oliver cocks his head. “You aren’t actually drunk, right?”

“No,” she reassures him. “This is just, uh, nervous babbling, not drunk babbling. I mean, not nervous like I’m not sure I want to, I definitely want to, it’s more like I’m so excited that everything in my brain is short circuiting a little and coming out like word vomit, and wow, that is not a sexy word to say right before, you know, we _have_ sex” -

“Felicity.” Oliver cups her cheeks in his hands, grinning like he likes she’s being absolutely adorable. “What are we going to do about this mouth?”

It makes her go still. It’s not that he’s said anything particularly dirty but there’s something about the tone he uses, it scrapes at something she doesn’t recognize but feels so intensely she can’t move. 

“You should kiss me again,” she suggests.

Oliver lifts an eyebrow, his thumbs sweeping over her temples. “Should I?”

“Hard to say stupid things when my lips are otherwise occupied.”

“Nothing you say is ever stupid.” Oliver kisses her, not on the lips but against her earlobe. “And maybe I _like_ it.”

“Oh?” she breathes, shivering as he kisses down the side of her neck.

“It kinda makes me wonder what else will make you talk like this.”

“Oliver.” It comes out like a whimper and she grips his shirt to steady herself.

“Shh, c’mere.” He helps her up onto the bed and coaxes her to lie back, a few of his down pillows under her head and shoulders.

He hovers over her, weight resting on his hands and knees and that’s when the nerves really come on, because it’s Oliver, and they’re going to do something together Felicity has only dreamed about, and now it happening and she’s so overwhelmed she can barely process it -

He kisses her and every nervous thought in her head evaporates.

It’s like everything gets washed away in a sea of warmth, Oliver’s lips are firm without being sloppy and it’s not like it’s a shock that he’s a great kisser but Felicity is still slightly surprised that she’s already been reduced down to physical sensation, her mind finally, blessedly quiet as he sucks on her bottom lip. He’s holding his body above hers and Felicity reaches up so she can rest her hands against his back. She slides them up under his shirt, amazed at the heat of his skin, the bulk of his muscles. She knows Oliver’s body by sight but she’s never had the opportunity to do this before, touch him in places she’s only fantasized about.

He brushes the tip of his tongue against the seam of her lips and she inhales, her mouth opening reflexively. She runs her hands up his spine as his tongue brushes against hers, making her shiver. Just kissing like this feels incredible, she’s warm and relaxed and Oliver’s mouth is doing amazing things to her, but then he spreads out one hand over the top of her left thigh and she jolts like she’s been lit on fire.

He makes a soft noise against her mouth and starts massaging her quad, squeezing his fingers against the muscle and rubbing a little. It makes tremors run up her body and go right into her core, she clenches her stomach and tries to breathe as she melts under the weight of his hand. He continues to kiss her, sucking little gasps out of her mouth as he inches his hand up her leg until he can wrap his fingers around her hip. Felicity’s legs fall open to the sides, swallowing down moans as Oliver scrapes his teeth over her bottom lip.

He sits back on his heels suddenly to peel off his shirt and okay, Felicity’s seen him without a shirt before but not in this context and she knows she’s staring but she can’t really stop, because honestly, it shouldn’t be possible to be this attractive. Oliver drops his shirt over the side of the bed and reaches down for the hem of the sweatshirt she’s still wearing.

“Can I take this off?” he asks.

Felicity nods, stupefied by his abs. She sits up and reaches her arms up; Oliver sits between her legs and helps her pull the sweatshirt up over her head. She twists to throw it vaguely in the same direction as she tossed her shirt, and when she sits back Oliver is staring at her with wide eyes because oh right, she isn’t wearing a bra. She has to fight the instinct to cover her chest, leaning back on her elbows instead as Oliver chases after her, stretching out over her as she leans back against the pillows.

She inhales sharply when he cups her with both hands, fingers stretching out so he can roll his thumbs over her. She groans at that and he does it again, a delighted grin on his face, like this is the best thing ever, so she lets him have at it and drops her head back against a pillow, eyes half shut, concentrating on the way her whole body lights up with every brush of his fingers over her skin. His lips go to her throat and she has to wrap her arms around his back to ground herself, clutching onto his shoulders. He drops down a little closer to her, hands going to her waist as he lets their naked chests brush together and Felicity moans softly, she wants him everywhere, the weight of his body holding her down in a way that makes her feel safe and warm and overflowing with desire.

“I love your body,” Oliver whispers, lips dragging across her collarbone. 

She arches up against him, dizzy at his words. “This feels so good.”

“Good.” Oliver says it like a growl and it makes her thighs clench.

He finally drops some of his weight for real and she can’t hold back a little cry when his hips line up against hers. She’s naked except for her underwear; it’s the tail end of winter in Starling but right now she’s burning up, a pulse between her legs starting to beat when he reaches around to grip her ass. Felicity can’t remember the last time just making out felt this good, fully focused on Oliver’s lips and his hands and the sound of their breath. They never turned the light on when it got dark out and the room is lit by their city and the moonlight coming in through the huge windows. Her body feels like those lights right now, pulsing and sparkling so bright it makes her a little dizzy.

Oliver rolls off her and stretches out next to her right side, eyes just as bright as all the other lights and it makes an ache spread through her, at how beautiful he is, they are, together like this. He licks lips that are a little swollen from kissing and spreads his hand low on her stomach. It makes her muscles jump and he makes this sexy _mmm_ sound that sends heat rushing through her. He slides a few of his fingers under the side of her underwear and Felicity freezes, it’s not like she didn’t know Oliver was going to see her naked but now that it’s actually going to happen it sets off a whole new rush of nerves.

She still pushes her hips up off the bed and helps him roll her thong down, she kicks it off and lies back down, her knees falling in towards each other. Oliver shifts so he’s balanced on his left side and rests his right hand lightly on her thigh.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” she breathes, trying to get over the shock of being completely naked in his bed right now. “Yeah it’s just, I’m naked, and I know it’s not really a big deal, I mean, I’m nineteen, I’ve been naked in front of guys before, and I have no idea how many naked women you’ve seen anyway, like my stepsister and half the girls at Starling Prep and models and socialites and an actual princess once, right, she was some kind of princess” -

“Hey, Felicity.” Oliver bends down and kisses her, cups her cheek with his hand and gives her a soft smile. “I think you’re the prettiest nineteen year old in the whole world and all I want to do right now is touch you and make you feel good. Okay?”

“Oh wow,” she sighs. “Okay. Yeah.”

“Okay.” Oliver kisses her again and then his hand is sliding down, down, until he’s cupping her between her legs.

She inhales sharply, dragging her feet up so they’re flat on the bed, and lets her knees fall to the sides. His breathing deepens a little and she holds still, blinking up at the ceiling as he spreads her open and slides his fingers up until he finds what he’s looking for. Felicity lets out a little cry at the feeling of the calloused pads of his fingertips pressing at her, swirling around and tracing light circles against her.

“Oh,”’she exhales, the pulse between her legs getting a little more intense. “Okay. Oh. Wow.”

He smirks a little. “Good?”

“Yeah, I just...” She tilts her head down, just to look at it, his hand working between her legs. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

He nods, looking a little glazed over as he follows her gaze down where he’s rubbing consistent rhythmic circles over her. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

She pushes her heels into the bed a little for some resistance. “No regrets?” she asks hopefully.

“None.” He kisses her again and she hums against his mouth.

There’s a tugging sensation in the bottom of her stomach and when he speeds up her hips push into his hand. She has to pant to get enough air, rolling her hips along to his rhythm as his fingers start to circle faster and faster.

“I feel like… my heart is beating really fast,” she gasps.

He gives her an encouraging smile. “I think that’s a good sign.”

“Mmmm. I… I didn’t… oh! Um, I didn’t think about this part.”

He blinks hazy eyes at her. “What part?”

The soles of her feet start to tingle. “Like, that you were gonna see me have an orgasm.”

He gives her a bemused look. “Isn’t coming half the point of having sex?”

“Yeah, I just didn’t really think about it. It’s kind of an - oh god, that feels really good - an intimate thing, you know?”

“Yeah, but it’s not like I’ve never...” Oliver smooths her hair back from her face. “I mean, I know, but… it’s me, Felicity. You can trust me.”

“I know,” she gasps, unable to resist the urge to work her hips frantically, and squeezes her eyes shut. “Oliver, I, _ngh_ , oh...”

His fingers are still circling her in a steady firm rhythm and she reaches out to clutch at his shoulders, pushing her hips into his touch, a broken sob stuck in the back of her throat and then he’s rubbing her harder and she comes in a rush that makes her arch her back, digging her nails into his skin as she rolls her hips, her thighs shaking.

She opens her eyes slowly, letting her head fall back against the pillow. Oliver’s watching her intently, slowing his fingers down to a light stroke as she gets her breath back. He slides one finger down and Felicity clenches around nothing, anticipation make her heart rate slide back up. He pushes his finger into her slowly and she stares up at him, the shock of him inside her making her go still.

He dips his finger in and out, twists it back in and curls it inside her. He exhales shakily and leans his forehead against hers, like he’s just as affected by this as she is. He pushes his thumb down where his finger was before and she squeezes around him automatically, making him hiss. She can’t help crying out a little, the finger inside her is enough to make her want more and she arches up to kiss him.

“I have condoms,” he mumbles against her lips.

She has an IUD but getting into a discussion about birth control seems like a waste of time when this is just a one-off anyway. “Great,” she pants, rocking her hips. “You should, you should do that.”

He grins. “Get a condom?”

She nods and Oliver kisses her roughly before pulling his finger out of her and rolling off the bed. He opens the top drawer to his nightstand and digs around until he finds a condom, tosses the foil packet onto the bed and shoves down his sweats and boxers in one go.

Felicity sits up, mouth dropping open she takes him in, because Oliver naked is a work of art; his body should be photographed and blown up to scale, they should make sculptures based on his physique. Suddenly every crazy thing Felicity has ever seen another girl do to get noticed by Oliver makes perfect sense, because why wouldn’t they want to be noticed by a god, bask in the absolute rapture of being chosen by a golden deity?

She slides across the bed to sit on the edge like she’s in a trance, Oliver shuffles between her legs so she’s eye level with his insanely sculpted abs and that sexy vee above his hips and his -

“Wow,” she breathes, aware that she sounds vaguely ridiculous and not caring at all. “Can I…?”

She holds her hand out and Oliver nods vigorously, eyes full of heat, so she wraps her fingers around him. He’s hard already, hot in her hand and he drops his head back with a sigh. She moves her hand around a little, playing, getting to know his body, watching with fascination as he twitches in her grip when she twists her wrist.

“Lie down,” he says in a hoarse voice. “Please.”

Holy shit, this is really happening.

She slides over to the middle of the bed and stretches back out against the pillows, legs falling open to the sides when Oliver climbs onto the bed and crouches between her legs. He rips open the package and Felicity watches him dumbly as he rolls the condom on, she’s seen porn before but nothing’s ever prepared her for how hot this is, just watching him. She gnaws on her bottom lip as Oliver gives the condom a tug to make sure it’s on all the way before leaning forward to balance on his forearms. She jumps a little when his fingers come back to touch her and she and Oliver both laugh as he dips his head down to kiss her. He pushes two fingers into her and she wrenches her mouth away from his to suck in a breath, dropping her head back against the pillow.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“Mhmm.” She tries to breathe through the stretch, pressure building low in her pelvis. “Yeah. I just…” 

“You need a minute?” he asks softly, and kisses the side of her neck.

She groans and rolls her hips. “Yeah I’m just… getting used to it. It’s, it’s, is that okay?”

“Of course,” he murmurs. 

He stretches his thumb up to draw circles in time to his fingers moving inside her and Felicity cries out, reaching up to grip his shoulders. “Ohmygod!”

He laughs against her collarbone. “You like that?”

“Understandment,” she grits out. 

The pressure building under his thumb makes her clench down on his fingers, her hips moving along to the rhythm he’s setting for her. She feels like she’s lost in the moment in a way she’s never really felt before when she’s had sex, like she doesn’t have to think about what she’s doing at all because her body intuitively seems to know how to follow his touch, all she has to do is relax into it and let her body do the work for her.

“You’re really good at this,” she groans, a distant _pleasepleaseplease_ running through her head.

He mouths at her chest. “Uh, thank you?”

“Thank _you_ ,” she half-giggles, half-moans.

Oliver sucks a bruise over her heart. “It’s easy to be good at something you really love to do, I guess.”

The fingers inside her start moving faster and she shoves her hips up to meet them, her focus solely on the waves of pressure building up inside her. Oliver rolls his thumb roughly over her and she starts to shake, looking up at him in wonder.

“Oliver, Oliver I think I’m gonna, oh god oh god oh god oh!”

Oliver kisses her as she comes, he lets her cling desperately to him as she shakes through it and when she starts to come down he pulls his fingers out, grips himself and slowly pushes inside her. She looks up at him in awe as he sinks all the way in, he feels like a perfect fit inside her, like their bodies were meant for each other. He’s staring at her too and Felicity can only hope that it feels as perfect to him, that she isn’t the only one with beautiful, impossible words running through her head right now. 

“Hey,” Oliver murmurs, and she swears it’s the sexiest word that’s ever been spoken. 

“Hi,” she whispers back.

He lifts one hand off the bed to brush a tendril of hair off her forehead. “Are you okay?”

His voice is so gentle and it makes something deep inside Felicity go soft. She knew Oliver was capable of being sweet but she’s never seen him be tender like this before. But there’s no other word for the way he’s looking at her, the quiet affection in his voice, and it’s so overwhelming it makes her feel a little dizzy. She’s never felt like this before, like she’s the center of someone’s world, like she’s precious, adored, beloved.

Special.

“Yeah,” she breathes. “You feel really good.”

“You too.” He pulls out a little and pushes back in, testing it out.

She presses her knees against his hips and slides her hands up his back, down to his forearms, up his biceps, amazed at how perfectly they fit into her palms as she wraps her fingers around his arms, like he has biceps just so she has something to hold onto. She rolls her hips a little and shudders at the heat that spreads throughout her body.

“What do you like?” Oliver asks, kissing her neck, her earlobe, her jaw. “What do you want?”

His naked chest drags against hers as he moves in and out of her and it’s sensory overload - the pressure of his pelvis rocking into her with every stroke, the flex of his back muscles under her hands, his lips dragging across her throat.

“Felicity?”

“I don’t know,” she moans.

He pushes up on his hands a little so he can look down at her, a little vein pulsing in his forehand. “Maybe you just need me to fuck you,” he suggests quietly.

She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m not saying that,” she starts, but then he shifts forward a little and the change in angle feels so good that she lets out a surprised laugh that turns into a drawn-out moan.

He raises a playful eyebrow at her. “You were saying?”

“Do that again,” she breathes.

His eyes go dark and he snaps his hips, it sends a ripple of heat up her spine and Felicity arches back to follow it, letting the momentum of him moving inside her pull her along. She stares up at him, watching the pulsing vein in his forehead, the bulging muscles in his arms, the clench of his jaw. She feels hot everywhere, lit up, and she’s had good sex before but it’s never felt like this, like every single tiny movement he makes inside her is magical, like she’s lost all track of time and is living in a suspended moment of bliss, her entire existence narrowed down to how amazing Oliver is making her feel. She runs her hands up and down his back, grazes her nails over his shoulders, palms his glutes, learns that Oliver shivers when she scratches his back, nips teasingly at her thumb when she traces it around his lips.

They’re both breathing hard, she can feel that steady pulse between her legs build every time he pushes in and she rolls her hips in time with his movements, groaning when Oliver reaches down to pull her knees up a little. It feels there’s tension in her whole body, like every muscle is being stretched to the breaking point and she stares up at him as she holds onto his biceps, mesmerized by him, how in control he is, rhymically moving inside of her until she starts to tremble.

“Felicity,” he pants, his eyes roaming over her face, her chest, chin tilting down to look where he’s moving in and out of her. “Fuck, you feel good.”

“Yeah,” she moans, writhing under him. “You, yeah. So good.”

She needs more, she can feel her stomach tightening and she holds onto him, trying to press her whole body against his as she rolls her hips along to every thrust. Oliver bends his head down to suck on her throat, supporting himself with one hand so he can thumb at her nipples every so often. She caresses the back of his neck, runs her fingers through his hair, squeezes hard around him but it’s not enough.

“Oliver, I, I need more,” she whispers, she can’t help it, she’s burning up inside. 

He makes a growly noise in the back of his throat and licks around the shell of her ear. “More what?”

She moans again, she can’t think straight right now. “Please,” she begs, the only word she can seem to pull up from her vocabulary. “Please, Oliver, please.”

He groans into her skin and slams into her. “Like this?”

“Yeah,” she moans, working her hips faster to keep up. “Yeah, yeah, oh god, you feel so good.”

He pushes back up on his hands, eyes hooded, watching her react as he picks up the pace until she has to reach back to brace herself against the headboard. Her skin feels too tight, every time Oliver pushes into her it sets off sparks that are smoldering and it’s so intense she can feel her skin break out in a cold sweat. He’s looking down at her with the kind of serious focused look she’s only seen on him during archery competitions and for some stupid reason that’s the thing that makes her really let go, the realization that she’s at the mercy of Oliver’s precision and attention and it feels so good, to be able to just give herself over to it.

She starts to cry out every time he slams into her, her eyelids fluttering, fingers scrabbling against the headboard. Oliver’s eyes flash and he slides his hands up the bed so Felicity can clutch onto them, weaving their fingers together as he gently holds them above her head. She feels like she’s on the verge of breaking apart, every nerve strung tight and she gasps for air, gripping his hands as she starts to shake.

“Oliver,” she cries out, his name tearing out of her throat. “Oh, ungh, Oliver!”

It’s so intense that it makes her feel a little unsteady, like she’s losing control, but Oliver just keeps fucking her, watching her fall apart underneath him like witnessing her approach another orgasm is the hottest thing he’s ever seen. She wails, the sound coming out of her without her really meaning for it to but she’s too far gone to hold back, her hips spasming as she stares up at Oliver in desperation.

“Felicity,” he grits out, looking down on her like she’s a goddess, an angel, something he worships.

“Oh my _god!_ ,” she cries.

“Yeah,” he grunts, pupils blown. “Yeah, yeah, fuck, that’s it.”

“Oliver!” She’s going to break, she’s going to fall apart, and she’s shaking so hard she’s sure he can feel it. “Oh my _god_ , Oliver, Oliver, I, _oh!_ ”

The vein in his temple is still pulsing, his jaw a sharp line as he lips his lips and blinks heavy lidded eyes at her. “Fuck, Felicity.”

Oliver keeps fucking her hard and fast and Felicity just gapes up at him as the pressure finally starts to reach the breaking point. She can’t do anything but writhe under him, held down by the weight of his pelvis and then her hips are bucking out of her control as she lets out a relieved cry.

“Yes!” she gasps out. “Yes, like that, yes, yes, don’t stop, don’t stop, just like that!”

“Oh god.” Oliver buries his face in her throat and holds her hands tight in his.

She’s right on that edge, she works her hips against him with a single-minded desperation, waves of warmth starting to roll through her. “Oliver, yeahyeahyeah, yes, don’t stop, I’m gonna come, oh, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh, _oh!_ ”

She shatters under him, their hips slamming together as she cries out. Oliver keeps fucking her and she shudders, gripping onto his hips as her climax crashes through her. She moans, her muscles locking up and Oliver grunts, reaches down to grip her ass and then Oliver’s hips spasm as he lets out a low groan. He grinds against her a few times and it makes her whimper; he releases her hands so he can cup her chin; he kisses her and Felicity realizes they’re both shaking, her arms tangled around his waist like vines, legs bent back towards her shoulders.

Oliver braces himself on his hands and slowly pulls out of her, making her shiver from the loss, the shock of being empty, physically separated from him. 

“Give me a second,” he mumbles, and then shocks her by closing his mouth around her left breast and sucking hard for a second before climbing over her and jogging to the bathroom to dispose of the condom.

He’s back before she can start to miss him, diving onto the bed and pulling her into his body, all warm skin and hard muscle and Felicity doesn’t realize that she’s shaking until he wraps his arms around her and starts rubbing her back.

“Are you okay?” he asks softly.

She presses her cheek against the heat of his chest and just breathes, loses herself in the absolute bliss of Oliver’s naked body wrapped around her own. “Mhmm.”

He chuckles and kisses the top of her head. “Just making sure.”

“Pretty sure you rewired my brain,” she mumbles.

Oliver slides his hands down to her ass and squeezes. “Oh yeah?”

She flicks his waist in retaliation. “Don’t get cocky on me.”

“Too late,” he deadpans.

Felicity looks up at him as they both burst into laughter, and she knows everything’s going to go back to normal tomorrow but for right now she’s here, held in the promise of Oliver’s arms and his bright eyes and his laugh, and she secretly wishes that this moment could last forever.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to find out if Oliver and Felicity can really go back to normal!

_And if I wasn't so fucked up_  
_I think I'd fuck you all the time_  
-Lana Del Rey, Fuck It I Love You

Oliver wakes up to Felicity sliding away from him under the covers.

“Don’t get up,” she whispers. “I’m just going to pee.”

“What timeisit?” he mumbles into his pillow.

“Early. Go back to sleep, I’ll be right back.”

He stretches out and starts to drift off again but when she comes back a few minutes later he can feel the mattress shift and he rolls a little towards her. They pretty much went to sleep right after last night without talking about what had happened and he doesn’t know how she’s feeling, if she’s okay, if she regrets it, if she thinks it was a mistake.

Or if maybe, just maybe, she wants to do it again.

When he manages to open his eyes sunlight is glowing under the curtains; Felicity is stretched out next to him with his blue plaid comforter pulled up over her shoulders, her blond hair spilled over the white pillowcases like a halo.

“Hey,” he murmurs sleepily. “Morning.”

“Sorry I woke you up.” Felicity snuggles her cheek against the pillow she’s using.

“It’s okay.”

“Thanks for letting me sleep over again.”

“You know you can always stay over.” He stifles a yawn into his pillow. “How’re you feeling?”

She blinks big, sleepy looking blue eyes at him. “Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, so…” She stretches, twisting to the side. “You gonna tell me what step four is?”

She gives him an impish smile and Oliver laughs, warm and sleepy and wondering if she’s still naked under the blankets. “You really wanna know, huh?”

“Mhmm.”

“Well.” Oliver stretches his head to the side and cracks his neck. “If you really wanna know…”

“You’ve got me this far, clearly I’m invested,” she points out.

“Okay. Step four isn’t really anything new, though.”

“Okay…?”

Fuck it, he reaches for her under the comforter and his hand lands on her naked hip. “Step four is to repeat step three as needed.”

She blinks. “How do you know if you need it?”

“Uh, I think that’s just something you know.”

“Oh.” She blinks again, looking a little dazed and he doesn’t know if she’s still half asleep or just processing. “So I guess the question is, do I feel over Cooper yet?”

He doesn’t dare move his hand. “Do you?”

Her tongue darts out to swipe across her bottom lip. “I don’t know. I… I think so. But…”

“Hmm?”

She tilts her head down and looks up at him through her eyelashes, like she feels a little shy. “Maybe… maybe we could, you know. Just one more time. Just to… make sure.”

Heat rushes through his veins and he dips his fingers into the crease of her hip. “We could do that.”

She blinks some more but this time it looks deliberate, like she’s batting her lashes and holy shit, she’s flirting with him. “Yeah?”

He thinks about last night, how incredible it felt being inside her, how crazy it made him feel to have her under him, _begging_ him, like he would’ve done anything to make her come over and over again, fucked her all night if she’d asked him to, helpless to the feeling that being with her was a strange divine culmination of every other choice he’d made in his life because it had brought him there, to that moment, the closest thing he’s ever had to a religious experience and it was fucking the one girl he’d secretly sworn to never let get too close to him so he wouldn’t ever have to worry about breaking her heart the way he had her stepsisters.

And goddamn did it feel fucking worth it.

He slides his hand down and cups the inside of her thigh, feeling the tension in her muscles. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” She shifts closer, still stretched out on her right side facing him, her eyelids fluttering.

Oliver slides his hand down and hooks it under her left knee to pull her leg towards him and she gets the idea, she drapes it across his hip so he has more space to work and he puts his hand back between her legs, fingers slowly parting her open as she sighs and lets her eyes drift shut. She’s wet already and he clenches his jaw, trying to stay focused. He isn’t sure what time it is exactly but she said early, he doesn't have class until the afternoon but he set an alarm on his phone for her before they went to sleep last night so she wouldn’t miss her morning lecture, he figures they’ve got enough time until it goes off to do this properly.

He starts to rub her in light circles and she sucks in a breath, her face contracting a little. They’re mostly under the covers, bodies hidden from each other, and he jumps when she reaches out to slide her left hand against his ribs, almost like they’re hugging on their sides.

“That feels really nice,” she sighs.

“Mm.” He watches her face, the way her lips part as she exhales, her cheeks starting to flush. She drags her hand down and Oliver’s stomach contracts when she trails her fingers down the length of him, feeling himself fill out and harden against her palm. “Shit!”

Felicity smiles. “Good morning.”

“Mmph.” He speeds up his fingers slightly in retaliation and her hand clenches around him.

“Oh,” she exhales dreamily, looking at him through heavily lidded eyes. 

She curls her hand around him and begins to move it up and down. He keeps circling his fingers over her and she starts to move her hips, rocking into him in quick little pulses. It’s quiet, they’re high above all the noise of Starling City bustling below and he can hear it when her breathing increases to sharp panting, her eyes shutting again. Felicity grimaces as she lets out a sharp exhale and then she’s shaking, her hand gripping around him rhythmically as she comes.

He gets his left arm under her so he can palm her ass, she uses the momentum to roll on top of him and Oliver groans as she settles onto his lap. She makes this little helpless noise and pushes her face into his chest, like she’s hiding, and Oliver wraps his arms around her back, holding her to him and it’s all hot skin on skin, her knees bracketing his hips, her hair tickling his throat, small hands curving around his biceps. She rolls her hips a little and he feels it when she shudders, fingers tightening around his arms.

He slides his hands down, feels the pulse of heat in the small of her back, grabs her ass just to relish the feel of such muscular perfection in his palms. “Hang on, let me get a condom.”

She rises up on her knees so Oliver can reach with his right arm and he manages to fish a condom out of his nightstand without having to get up. He sits up a little and rips the packaging open, and Felicity widens her legs a little as she reaches out to take the condom. “Can I?”

He nods, dry mouthed, and lies back down, hissing through clenched teeth as she grips him and rolls the condom down. She bites her lip and lowers her hips a little. “Is this… do you like this?” she asks, sounding a little nervous.

He settles his hands on her hips. “With you on top?”

“Yeah.”

“I haven’t really found a sex position I’m not a fan of yet,” he answers honestly. “I’m good if you are.”

She gives him a shy smile. “I like it,” she whispers, like she’s confessing a secret, and if he wasn’t already he’s definitely ready to go now.

“Me too,” he assures her.

“Okay.” She breathes in and out a few times like she’s psyching herself up and then she starts to sink down onto him.

“Oh god,” she groans, but he barely hears her because he’s so overwhelmed by how she feels, impossibly hot and tight and he’s shocked by it all over again, how perfect she is around him.

When he’s all the way inside her Felicity looks down at him, mouth dropped open a little and he wonders if she’s having the same deja vu, the remembrance of how incredible last night was. Oliver’s had a ton of sex in his young life - hot sex, wild sex, occasionally straight up kinky sex, but he’s never had anything exactly like last night - like he and Felicity were completely connected on every level, like their chemistry was a slow burning fire that ate its way through his body and turned him into an inferno.

She braces her hands against his chest and lifts up a little, drops back down and whimpers. Oliver runs one hand up her back, if this is the last time they do this then he wants to drag it out, make it last as long as possible, so he lies there and follows Felicity’s pace, gently pushes up to meet her every time she sinks down.

Her eyes are half closed, hips moving in a slow steady rhythm. A flush starts to spread over her chest and he wonders if she’s close already. This is so new for them, he has to figure out everything on the fly, what makes her gasp and shake and cry out, what she likes, what she doesn’t even know she wants until he gives it to her. Her breathing gets heavier and he resist the heat pooling in his stomach, his thighs and abs flexing as she starts moving her hips faster.

“Oliver,” she pants, her voice thin. “Mmmm, I, I, please.”

“What?” he asks softly, sweeping his hands up and down her sides. “What do you need?”

Her eyebrows pinch together and she gives him a desperate look that makes him glow with pride, that she wants him, this, that he can make her feel so good that she just wants more and more. 

“Harder,” she grits out. “Please.”

_Fuck._

Just like that his game plan changes, if this is really the last time he fucks her then he’s going to make it worth it, he’s going to blow her mind, he’s going to ruin her for every guy who comes after him.

Yeah okay, so he’s a little competitive about this stuff. Whatever, it doesn’t change the fact that he’s going to make the most of this little slice of bliss before it’s over.

He plants his feet flat on the bed to surge up into her and she gasps as she falls forward, her hair tickling his shoulders. He moves in a firm, hard rhythm and Felicity rolls her hips to keep up.

“Oh my _god_ , oh my _god_ ,” she starts to chant rhythmically. “Oh my _god_ oh my _god_ oh my _god_ \- oh!”

She goes rigid and he pounds up into her again and again until she lets out a drawn out groan and lifts her head where she’d dropped it against his chest. Oliver reaches up and smooths her hair away from her face, relishing the look she’s giving him, like she’s just approached Nirvana.

“Can you come again?” he asks her.

She stares at him blankly for a few seconds but then she nods, and thirty seconds later she’s slamming her hips back frantically as he thrusts up into her, her mouth open in a silent cry. He loses it, control forgotten completely; he picks her up off of him and flips her over onto her back, reaches down to make sure the condom is still on before driving back into her and she curls around him, legs wrapping around his low back, her hands coming up to cup the back of his neck. 

He buries his face in her throat as he moves inside her, his lips sliding against impossibly soft skin. He wants to consume her, fill her up and never leave her, and by the way she’s wailing and working her hips under him she seems to want the same thing. Everything else drops away, there’s just Felicity pulsing around him and her voice crying out to Oliver and God and Jesus and Oliver again and then she’s spasming around him and he tries to hold on but he can’t, her fingernails scrape against his neck and send pinpricks of heat down his spine and he spills into the condom with a drawn out groan.

They lie there breathing heavily for a moment and then he pulls out slowly, memorizing the little sound she makes when he does. 

“Be right back,” he murmurs, and walks naked to the bathroom to discard the condom.

She’s sitting up in his bed when he comes back, her hair a total mess, cheeks all flushed, looking properly fucked and it’s the most gorgeous thing Oliver’s ever seen. He crosses the room to her and climbs onto the mattress and then his phone alarm blares and they both startle, Oliver stretches out across the bed to shut it off and Felicity slides away from him, head down, climbs off the bed and pulls on the underwear that she discarded last night.

“I have to go,” she says quietly, looking down at the floor as she grabs her bag and sets it on the edge of the bed. “Can I borrow a shirt?”

Oliver stares at her for a moment, it’s like when his alarm went off the dynamic between them completely changed, Felicity seems shut down and it’s so different from how she was just a few minutes ago that it makes his head spin.

“Sure,” he tells her, ignoring the way his stomach feels like it’s turned into a block of ice.

He picks out a plain long sleeved black shirt that’s a little big on him and when she puts it on it falls almost to her knees like a dress. He jumps into a clean pair of boxer briefs and pulls on a pair of grey joggers while Felicity sits on the edge of the bed and straps on her heels. He has to admit that he's impressed with how good she looks for what is essentially a walk of shame outfit, it almost looks like she’s dressed this way intentionally.

“Do you need a ride home?” he asks.

“No it’s fine, I can just call a car.”

“Felicity.” She still won’t really look at him and he’s overcome by a wave of fear, that maybe this was a mistake, that they won’t be able to go back to how things were before and it will slowly but surely make things awkward and tense between them.

How can something that felt so right be a mistake?

“Oh shit.” Felicity’s staring down at her phone. “I forgot to ask if I could borrow your charger last night.”

“Your phone dead?”

“Yeah.”

Oliver yanks on a tee shirt. “You sure you don’t want that ride now?”

Felicity presses her lips together and slips her phone into her bag. “Yeah, okay.”

They go down to the underground garage in silence, Oliver’s hands in the pockets of his jacket and Felicity practically strangling the strap of her bag with her fingers, her knuckles almost white. Oliver unlocks the Bentley and opens the passenger door for Felicity, she offers him a tight smile and gets in, does her seatbelt while he shuts her door and jogs around to get into the driver’s seat. He starts the car, buckles up and checks his mirrors before reversing out of his space and driving around to the garage entrance. He swipes his pass and the grate slides open, Oliver pulls forward and flicks on his turn signal, checks for traffic and pulls out onto the street.

It’s a bright winter morning and he squints, digging around in the cup holder until he finds a pair of wayfarers and puts them on. Next to him Felicity is slouched in her seat, one hand over her forehead, her eyes closed behind her glasses. Oliver sighs quietly to himself and turns the radio on, dials the volume down to a low hum and drives across campus to Sara and Felicity’s apartment.

When he gets there he parks outside the entrance to her building and puts his hazards on. Felicity unbuckles her seatbelt and shifts towards him, eyes darting around but not really landing anywhere.

“Thank you for the ride,” she says, sounding oddly formal. 

“Felicity.” He taps his fingers anxiously against the steering wheel. “Are… are we okay?”

“Of course we’re okay,” she says quickly. “Why wouldn’t we be okay?”

He looks at her incredulously. “Do you seriously need me to answer that question?”

“It was a one time thing, right?” She winces at him. “I mean, a two time thing I guess.”

“Right.”

“So we’re just friends,” she says stiffly. 

“I know that.”

“So…”

“So…?”

She looks away. “I should go, I want to take a shower before I have to leave for class.”

“Okay,” he says helplessly, because what else is he supposed to say? Don’t? Stay and talk to me? Tell me where you went and who this robot version of Felicity is? 

“Okay.” She reaches for the door handle. “So I’ll just, uh, see you later then?”

Oliver swallows down a wave of nausea. He’s so confused he feels disoriented, he doesn’t understand why she’s acting this way, like what happened between them was no big deal, like it meant nothing to her. But he doesn’t really know what he wants from her either, they were both clear from the start that this was an isolated event, something between friends, it wasn’t a standard hookup or a romantic encounter, it wasn’t like they had looked at each other and suddenly realized that they were in love.

She doesn’t owe him anything.

If she wants to go he doesn’t have any other choice than to let her and try his best to take it with grace.

“Okay,” he says evenly. “See you later.”

“Okay.” Felicity opens the car door and turns back to give him a smile that somehow looks very sad. “Goodbye Oliver.”

She gets out of the car before he can ask her to wait, and as Oliver watches her duck her head against the wind and rush into the lobby of her building he realizes he never kissed her this morning.

Shit. Of course it would only take him twelve hours to fuck up.

Oliver rests his head against the steering wheel for a moment in total, utter defeat before checking his mirrors and pulling out onto the street.

When he gets back home he runs upstairs to hang up his jacket and grab his headphones, turns right around and takes the elevator downstairs. He opens a music playlist in the lobby and plugs in his headphones, slips them on and goes outside. He walks for a few blocks and breaks into a jog, paces himself for a few more blocks before he builds up to a run. He has a general route through campus that he usually takes but he needs more time to shake what happened, forget the mental picture of Felicity walking away from him so he turns towards downtown, runs past corporate buildings and skyscrapers and restaurants and boutiques, runs until he’s soaked with sweat and his legs ache.

He ducks into a coffee shop and buys an Americano, a blueberry muffin and a bottle of water, eats the muffin out on the sidewalk and drains half the water, jams the bottle in the pocket of his sweatpants and walks home while he drinks his coffee. 

By the time he makes it back to the penthouse he’s exhausted, even with the caffeine, and he’s feeling a slow black wave crawling over him. He takes a long hot shower, changes into clean sweats and goes back to his room, his breath catching in his chest when he looks at the rumpled bed linens.

He stalks across the room, yanks the comforter and sheets off the bed, balls them up and takes all the bedding down the hall, turns around a corner to the laundry nook across from the half bath and washes away all the physical evidence of him and Felicity ever being together.

*

“Dude, what is up with you?” Tommy asks him the next day when they’re in the gym, getting in a lifting session before they eat dinner.

Oliver finishes his last deadlift and racks his weights. He hasn’t texted or called Felicity since he saw her yesterday morning and he hasn't heard anything from her either. “Nothing.”

Tommy wipes his palms on his track pants and follows Oliver over to the mats to cool down and stretch. “You sure about that buddy?”

Oliver straightens his legs out in front of him and reaches for his shins. “Pretty sure.”

Tommy raises an eyebrow. “So there’s no reason why this is the first time you’ve left the penthouse since yesterday?”

“Huh?”

“Dude, you skipped class yesterday and today, you didn’t go out last night, what’s going on with you?”

_Felicity, walking away from him like she thought she was just another conquest for him._

“Nothing,” Oliver grumbles.

“You need to get laid,” Tommy declares.

He snorts. “That’s not it.”

“Dude, when was the last time you even hooked up with someone? That cute ski teacher in Aspen over winter break?”

“Mhmm.”

“That was like two months ago! No wonder you’re moping around, you need to find a nice pretty lady to cheer you up.”

“Sex doesn’t fix everything Tommy.”

“But it usually does for you.” Tommy tilts his head curiously. “So what gives?”

“I’m fine,” Oliver mutters. “Really.”

“Uh-huh. Okay.” Tommy narrows his eyes at him. “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Cus I’m your best bro Ollie, you can tell me anything.”

“I know,” Oliver tells him, but what he’s thinking is, _not this._

He doesn’t know how to tell Tommy that he slept with Felicity, _twice,_ possibly destroyed their entire relationship and it’s all his fault, he has no one to blame but himself. He’s supposed to be looking out for her, not talking her into casual sex. He doesn’t know what happened, what made him think that it was a good idea, that the two of them could do something like that and neither of them would get hurt.

He still goes out with Tommy that night, because if he doesn’t he’ll sit in his room at home and drink by himself. They go to a bar that’s near Big Belly Burger, drink whiskey in a VIP room with a few other guys they know who intern at Merlyn Global. Oliver sits there and zones out while Tommy shoots the shit with the guys, thinking about Felicity’s soft skin and her perfect ass and her voice begging him for more.

He’s being ridiculous. He’s acting exactly the way he was always secretly afraid _Felicity_ would act if something ever happened between them. Not that he ever really thought about them having _sex_ (and mind blowing sex at that, the kind of sex people write poetry about, the kind of sex that makes people believe in love) but he knew that she had a crush on him growing up, they were all aware of it to some extent, even Laurel, who was the kind of smart self-assured girl who never worried about having to compete, especially with a tiny, socially awkward kid. 

They’d all thought it was cute, Felicity’s instant attachment, her obvious adoration of him. It was a phase, they all thought. She’d grow out of it one day. 

So he’s always been careful with her in a way he never was with Laurel or, well, anyone else, because Felicity came into his life with her heart already broken and Oliver would be damned if he was the guy who picked up the pieces and smashed them to dust.

He never thought that he would be the one to walk away feeling heartsick.

He goes home alone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all have a safe and happy New Year, I’ll be back next week with Chapter 6 :)

_Take in the sweetness_  
_You want this, you need this_  
-Lana Del Rey, Mariners Apartment Complex

Felicity is losing her mind.

She’s had obsessions before. She’s used to it, she has the kind of brain that’s capable of fixating on things while still executing three different tasks at the same time, this isn’t anything new for her. She’s been like this ever since she was a kid: there was Square Bear, her favorite stuffed animal, lost forever to the void, the first supercomputer she built, the year she spent begging her mom to send her to space camp.

But she’s never been obsessed with a guy before. Not like this. Not in a way that makes her feel like she’s going crazy.

And of course when she finally does lose it over a guy, the guy is Oliver.

This is bad. This is so bad.

She spends the next two days after she sees Oliver replaying Sunday night and Monday morning over and over again in her head, losing herself in the fantasy of being in his bed, submitting to the heat of his body, reliving the way he’d lit her on fire, stirred awake a desire so deep inside of her that it felt cellular. She’s never felt that close to another person before, like the beat of her heart and the pulse between her legs and his body moving inside of her were all part of some greater rhythm.

And then his alarm had gone off and it had felt like being doused in the icy cold water of reality, and Felicity had been prepared for it to be an adjustment but she hadn’t expected it to _hurt_.

Oliver’s never going to be her boyfriend, he’s never going to fall in love with her. She’s just his friend, she’s the younger stepsister of his ex-girlfriend and the woman he once took on an ill-fated joyride across an ocean. She’s the daughter of a deadbeat father and a cocktail waitress, she isn’t the kind of girl who gets the prince.

She can’t let herself get deluded into thinking otherwise. Everything that happened between them was just like the fantasies Felicity used to have about Oliver - a dream, pretend, make believe, something to hold close to her heart in secret.

Not real.

So when she walks out of her last lecture on Wednesday afternoon she thinks it’s reasonable to wonder if she’s hallucinating Oliver standing outside her lecture hall, legs casually crossed at the ankle, looking devastatingly sexy in a black motorcycle jacket zipped up over a sweatshirt and a grey beanie.

But he’s still there when she walks down the steps and meets him where he’s standing on the sidewalk and god, it’s not fair that just seeing him makes her go soft and weak in the knees like this.

“What’re you doing here?” she asks.

She hasn’t heard from him since Monday morning, when he dropped her off and she’d said a bunch of shit that she has no real memory of because she’d pretty much blacked out from stress and ran out of his car like a crazy person.

Oliver works his jaw, looking a little tense. “Wanna come over and study?”

Felicity blinks and reaches up to adjust her glasses. She studies at Oliver and Tommy’s plenty, even more so since Oliver got serious about pulling up his GPA this year. It’s something normal for them, something friends do, and they’re still friends, right?

“Okay,” she decides. “Sure.”

“Okay, cool.” Oliver looks a little relieved as he reaches out to take her backpack from her. “Do you mind if we stop at the market first? I need study fuel.”

“Sure,” she says, and falls in step next to him as they start to walk towards Star Market.

The little bell above the door jangles when they go inside and Felicity is instantly enveloped by warm, pine scented air. Star Market is one of those little shops she’d never go into if she wasn’t friends with literal billionaires, everything is organic and free trade and generally costs way more than Felicity is comfortable spending on groceries. She isn’t starving because of her scholarship money but she’s always so careful with it, the way her mom raised her to be with money, she could never justify spending twelve dollars on a small container of fresh cut melon or twenty bucks on an organic cheese plate wrapped in waxed paper.

Oliver of course has no such sensibilities, he walks up and down the narrow aisles throwing random things into the shopping basket: a jar of kalamata olives, an eight dollar bag of organic granola, whole wheat crackers, a wedge of Brie, cold pressed green juice, a single wrapped protein cookie the size of his hand, a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream, a tub of hummus, pita chips, dried apricots.

“Are you good with this?” he asks her after snagging a package of protein bars made with bison meat. “Is there anything else you want?”

Felicity shakes her head, hating how good it makes her feel, his casual generosity. It’s one of those things they’re both aware of, that she’s middle class and he’s part of the one percent, but they don’t ever talk about it, Oliver just always pays for her and considering that it’s not even his money she’s never really felt bad about it, god knows it’s not like it affects his financial situation in any way. The Queens are basically richer than god but it still means something to her, that he does it without even thinking about it, because he’s always been a gentleman like that, aware of how much it would hurt her pride to either have to decline hanging out with him or fork over money she doesn’t have to pay her own way.

They walk back to the penthouse without talking, Felicity stealing little sideways glances at Oliver every so often but he’s blank faced, the shopping bag looped around his wrist and her backpack still dangling off one shoulder like it weighs nothing. She’s too afraid to say something, she doesn’t want to make things weird when their dynamic feels so fragile and she doesn’t trust herself right now, to not put her foot in her mouth and end up saying something totally moronic and humiliating.

When they get to his building Oliver scans his electronic key to let them into the lobby and Felicity weaves past leather and chrome furniture to follow him to the elevator bay. They step into the elevator and he scans his key again because you need a special code to go all the way up to the penthouse, the little red _PH_ icon dings overhead and they start to rise, leaving her and Oliver stuck in a small space awkwardly looking everywhere but each other.

When they get up to the penthouse and the elevator doors open they both rush out of it and she’d laugh at that, that they both feel uncomfortable but won’t say it out loud, except it’s too sad to be funny.

Oliver unlocks the door to the penthouse and Felicity trudges in after him, dragging her feet a little, which means when he abruptly stops at the end of the foyer she slams into his back with an _oomph_ and stumbles around to his side to see what made him freeze like that.

In the living room Tommy’s sitting on the couch along with seven other people scattered around him, a few open laptops on the coffee table along with bags of chips and containers of salsa, and they’re all staring at her and Oliver like they’re intruders breaking up a Very Important meeting. Felicity jumps back and hides behind Oliver, trying not to break into nervous giggles at the awkward silence.

“Oh right,” Oliver says faintly. “It’s Wednesday.”

“Yep,” Tommy answers, kind of snidely. “Do you mind?”

“We’re just gonna go study in my room.” Oliver nods his head at Felicity and the two of them rush down the hall and escape to his bedroom.

Oliver slams the door behind them and turns around to look at her. She presses her lips together as his mouth twitches, he lets out a chuckle and then they’re both laughing so hard she doubles over.

“He’s gonna kill me.” Oliver shakes his head. “He’s like, obsessed with this study group.”

“I knew it was Wednesday too, we really have no excuse,” she giggles. It feels so good to laugh, to have an excuse to bond together after the agony of the past few days.

He tips the bag from the market upside down and all the snacks spill out onto the bed. “Good thing we have supplies.”

Felicity takes her backpack from him and unzips it, pulls out her tablet and sets it on the nightstand. “We should eat the ice cream before it melts.”

Oliver digs out a plastic spoon from the bag and passes it to her. “Go for it.”

She kicks off her heeled boots and climbs onto the bed, opens the lid of the ice cream and peels off the plastic wrap. He bends down and pulls off his boots, stands back up only to unbutton his jeans and shove them down over his hips while she sits there with the spoon halfway to her mouth, like an idiot.

“What - what’re you doing?” she blurts out.

He looks at her like it’s a weird question as he steps out of his jeans. “Putting on sweatpants.”

He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like it’s not a big deal that he just took his pants off in front of her. “Oh,” she mumbles. “Right. Obviously.”

“Sorry, I didn’t…” Oliver looks vaguely annoyed as he carries his jeans into the bathroom and dumps them into the hamper. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t!” she insists, and sticks the ice cream into her mouth so she can’t say something stupid.

Oliver takes a pair of Adidas sweatpants out of his dresser and yanks them on, grabs his laptop where it’s sitting on his desk and takes it over to the bed. “Your face says otherwise.”

She swallows and licks her lips. “That’s not fair, how am I supposed to know what my face looks like?”

Oliver sighs and rips open the wrapper of his protein cookie. “You want study music?”

“Sure.” She sets the ice cream down on the nightstand and picks up her tablet, so self-conscious her neck feels hot.

He plugs his phone into the speaker dock sitting on the other nightstand and puts on a playlist they made months ago, takes a huge bite of his cookie and powers up his laptop. Felicity opens up her study guide on her tablet, organized by day and color coded, finds the notes she’s supposed to study off of for her weekly humanities lecture quiz on Friday and pulls them up.

She leans back against the pillows stacked against the headboard and balances her tablet on her thighs, acutely aware of how near Oliver is to her, sitting merely a few inches away, close enough for her to accident bump her knee against his. She tries to clear her mind, focus on the words on her screen, but all she can think about was what happened last time she was in his bed. She hadn’t really thought about it, what it would be like between them after, she’d made an impulsive decision and now she’s going to be tortured for the rest of her life over it, because now that she knows what it feels like, to really be with him, she can’t imagine never getting to have that again.

Which is ridiculous. It was just sex. No strings attached sex, a fluke, something they’ll laugh about one day, if they can ever manage to get over the awkwardness of it.

Oliver’s elbow brushes against her arm.

“Sorry,” he mutters, eyes on his laptop.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs, like her arm isn’t on fire, like he hasn’t set off a sense memory throughout her whole body of what it feels like to be touched by him.

He doesn’t look at her so she keeps pretending to read. This is such a waste of time, she isn’t going to get any work done like this, but it feels worth it anyway, just to be near Oliver again, to soak up what little she can get. Very carefully, she lets her knees fall open, just enough for her right one to tap against his thigh.

“Sorry,” she whispers.

“It’s fine.” His fingers tap against the keyboard. 

Heart in her throat, Felicity lets her knee do it again and this time Oliver doesn’t even react and it sends a thrill through her whole body, like she’s doing something illicit and wrong but it feels so, _so_ good she doesn’t want to stop.

So she doesn’t.

Eventually he starts doing it back, their legs gently knocking against each other in time to the music. She isn’t even pretending to study anymore, staring blankly at her tablet as she zones out, lost to the heat flooding her body, so she puts her tablet back on the nightstand and when she stretches back out on the bed she makes the mistake of looking at Oliver and then he’s reaching for her or she’s scrambling towards him, or both; his laptop almost sails to the floor as he hauls her into his lap and then they’re kissing as she reaches up to whip her glasses off and toss them across the bed.

She winds her arms around his neck, mouth parting so he can slide his tongue against hers and she has to inhale through her nose as she settles her weight over him and feels him hard in his sweatpants. His hands grip onto her hips and she moans against his lips as he coaxes her to rock against him. His lips press kisses against her jaw, her throat, he catches her earlobe between his teeth and she shivers, her stomach contracting, muscles going soft. He kisses her again, rough, all tongue and teeth and she’s shaking, her fingernails scraping against his neck as a pulse starts to beat between her legs. 

Oliver tears his mouth away from hers and tugs on the hem of her sweater, she lifts her arms up and lets him take it off for her and toss it onto the floor and thank god she’s wearing a decent bra, pale pink sheer lace that Oliver wastes no time removing. He immediately cups one of her breasts and wraps his lips around the other and Felicity cries out, her hands coming to his shoulders as her head tips back. Her hips move against his without really thinking about it, lost to his mouth and his fingers working over her chest until she’s almost crying for real, her throat tight as she tries to breathe through the tension in her body. 

Oliver lifts his head suddenly and she whimpers at the chill of the air against her spit-slick skin, curling into him and tugging on his shirt until he yanks it over his head and she presses her naked chest against his, moaning at the heat of his bare skin against her own.

“Felicity.” His voice sounds tight as he runs his fingers up and down her back. “We should - talk.”

Her lips suck against his collarbone as she rolls her hips into him, shuddering at the heat that spirals up her spine. “After,” she begs.

Oliver wraps one hand around her ponytail and to her surprise he pulls, not hard, but enough to make her notice and lift her head in response.

“After what?” he asks carefully. “What do you want to happen here?”

Her stomach drops as blood rushes to her cheeks. She just assumed they would have sex again, because apparently Oliver has completely broken her brain and it didn’t occur to her that maybe he wouldn’t want to again, or worse, that he would actually make her ask for it, which has just enough potential for rejection for her to feel terrified, and she tries to cling off his lap but he holds her firmly by the waist so she can’t escape and it makes her heart race like she’s going to throw up or burst into tears and her breath starts to get choppy, but then he takes one hand and wraps it around her jaw, his thumb resting gently against the side of her face.

“Hey,” he says softly. “I just need to know that you’ll be okay if we… you kinda ran out on me last time.”

“Well excuse me for being slightly freaked out that I had the best sex of my entire life with my childhood best friend slash my stepsister’s ex-boyfriend slash my other stepsister’s secret lover or ew, I don’t really know how you and Sara define whatever that was anyway” -

“Felicity.” Oliver’s giving her a cocky smile. “Best sex of your life, huh?”

“Shut up!” she wails. “I’m freaking out and you’re walking around taking your pants off and looking at me like you want to fuck me six ways til Sunday” -

“Maybe I do,” he growls.

“Oliver.” Felicity bites her lip. “What are we doing?”

“We’re having sex Felicity, it doesn’t have to be that complicated.”

“Oh,” she says dumbly, like that never actually occurred to her, which it hadn’t.

“But I need you to talk to me. I need to know you aren’t gonna shut down on me if we do this again.” His thumb runs up and down the side of her face, sweeps it under her bottom lip, traces it under her jaw. 

“Okay,” she whispers.

His other hand slides back down to her hip. “Okay. So back to my original question.”

Her stomach tightens. “Remind me?”

He gives her a wicked looking grin. “What do you want?”

“Oliver,” she pleads.

“You literally just agreed you would talk to me,” he reminds her.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” she blurts out. “About you…”

He tips her head back to brush his lips against hers. “About me fucking you?”

She moans and he squeezes her hip. “You want that? You want me to fuck you again?”

“Oh god,” she whimpers. 

“You do, don’t you?” he asks heatedly.

“Please,” she affirms.

“Please what?” His hand slides around to cup her ass through her jeans. “Say it.”

She grinds down on him, her eyes squeezing shut. She’s trembling, hot everywhere and she might die, just from this. “I need it,” she begs.

Oliver’s mouth crashes against hers and Felicity meets him like she’s drowning and he‘s the only one who can save her. Their tongues brush against each other as he kisses her and she cries into his mouth, hands reaching out to brace herself against his shoulders. His hands fumble with the button of her jeans and she reaches down to help him with it, almost sobbing in desperation as he finally gets it undone.

“Why are you wearing jeans?” he complains as he pulls the zipper down.

“How was I supposed to know this was going to happen?” she retorts.

He shoves his hand down her underwear and she clutches at his shoulders, going up on her knees a little as he works his fingers down, the heel of his hand pressing against her and she cries out at the sudden pressure.

“Felicity,” Oliver groans. 

She rocks into his hand as she curls forward, her thighs clenching. His free hand cups the back of her neck and he pulls her in for a bruising kiss as he works his hand against her. She pulls away so she can gasp for breath, bouncing in his lap as she wiggles against him.

Please,” she begs him. “Please, please, please, please.”

He flips them over and yanks her jeans down over her hips, she kicks them off and Oliver comes back to her, groping wildly for his laptop so he can put it on the nightstand before it falls off the bed, and turns the music way, way up to drown out the sounds of her moaning when he puts his hand back inside her underwear. She lifts her hips and he tugs off her thong, stretches out over her and pushes two of his fingers inside her.

“Ohmygod!” she cries out. She’s been fantasizing about this for two days, she’s so turned on it almost hurts and she feels like she’s a hair trigger away from coming already.

He nips at her throat, her collarbone, her chest, curls his fingers inside her and she sobs, writhing under him as she clutches at his shoulders. 

“Please,” she begs, not caring how desperate she sounds, she’ll say anything right now to get him to understand how badly she needs him, this. “Oliver, you can, you can fuck me, just, please!”

“Fuck,” he hisses, and rolls off of her to take off the rest of his clothes and get a condom. 

He rolls it on and climbs onto the bed, gets in between her legs and Felicity widens them for him but instead of pushing inside her he balances on one arm and reaches down to touch her until she’s grabbing at his hips and gasping for breath, her heels digging against the mattress. 

“Oh!” she gasps, her eyes flying open as she looks up at him.

Oliver’s eyes are a stormy blue as he stares down at her. “You want this? You want me to make you come?”

“Oliver,” she exhales shakily, wondering how it’s possible for him to get even more sexy, apparently verbal communication really does it for her.

His fingers rub harder and she nods frantically. “Yes,” she gasps. “Please, please, just, I’m ready, I swear.”

“Shh, okay, okay.” He dips his head to kiss her throat as he reaches down and guides himself inside her.

“Oh _god_ ,” she moans. “You feel so good.”

“Felicity.” He rocks into her slowly and she tries to roll her hips against the weight of his body. “Yeah, that’s it, shit.”

“You can - please, just, I need,” she starts to babble. 

She’s pinned back against the pillows, knees pushed up towards her shoulders and she pulls him to her so his chest is against hers and everything is perfect because Oliver is inside of her, his weight holding her down and she almost cries from being so happy, overwhelmed with that strange, sacred feeling of connection, of being so close to him there isn’t room in her head for anything else.

Oliver thrusts into her in quick hard movements and she clings to him, pressure spreading through her pelvis and it’s just as good as she remembered, all delirious heat and the sound of his breath punching out of him and his hands shoving her legs father up, holding them down against the mattress.

“Yes,” she grits out. “That’s, oh god, you feel so good.”

He groans in response and she’s so close already, crying out every time he pushes into her. Felicity’s practically bent in half, his hands holding her legs up for her and she can’t do anything except let go and she’s never felt like this before, like she’s completely at her body’s mercy and she _loves_ it, loves how the more she can let go the more intense it gets, until he’s grinding against her with every thrust and then the pressure starts to reach the breaking point and her thighs shake in his grip as heat rushes up her body.

“Yes,” she cries out. “I’m, I’m, Oliver!” 

He ducks his head and sucks on her shoulder, her throat, finds her ear and nibbles on it and then her whole body goes tight, pressure making her squeeze around him as she tries to work her hips in rhythm with his.

“I’m gonna come” she warns him. “Oh god oh god I’m gonna come, cover my mouth, I don’t want them to, I, I, please, oh, oh, oh, I, I can’t, ohhhh” -

Oliver slaps a palm over her mouth right before a shout tears out of her throat as she comes, light bursting behind closed eyelids, fucking her through it until she relaxes a little. He grunts and pulls out, flips her over and Felicity scrambles onto her hands and knees. She looks back at him for direction but then he puts one hand between her legs and she moans, rocking into his touch as fire spirals up her spine. 

“God, look at you.” Oliver sounds breathless. “C’mere, let me…”

He lifts her up and has her brace herself against the headboard, spreads her legs wide and then he’s pushing back into her with a drawn-out groan. “Yeah, that’s it, fuck, you feel amazing.”

His hand is still between her legs, the other one splayed against her stomach to hold her against him as he starts moving inside of her. She doesn’t know whether to rock forward or push back, trapped in the push-pull of his body. She cries out weakly, listening to the harsh sound of his breath. His hand feels huge as it presses against the heat simmering low in her belly, fingers working roughly against her slick skin and she gives herself over to it, him, the demand of the arousal tearing through her body. She pushes back into him and Oliver grunts, rubbing her so hard she feels like she’s going to shake out of her skin.

“Are you… trying to prove something?” she gasps out, her head falling forward.

He huffs out a laugh and kisses the back of her neck. “You set the bar pretty high with all that ‘best sex of my life’ talk, I can’t slack now.”

Felicity rolls her hips frantically. “I definitely wouldn’t call this slacking.”

“Couldn’t let you down,” he groans.

“Such a gentleman,” she pants out. 

“Not too much, hopefully,” he says tightly.

He hammers into her as if to prove the point, and her stomach tightens. “No, definitely not, just, just, this is good, oh _god._ ”

“You gonna come?” he grits out. “Tell me you’re going to come.”

He speeds up the circles he’s rubbing against her and she starts to slam back against him, crying out in time to his thrusts. “I will,” she promises wildly. “Just, just, fuck me, make me” -

“Yeah,” he says in a strained voice. “Yeah, that’s right, I’ll make you come.”

“Do it,” she groans, like she’s daring him. She’s shaking in his arms, legs aching from holding herself up, all her inhibitions gone. “Fuck me.”

Oliver rams into her from behind, his fingers rubbing her so fast it makes her dizzy and then her whole body is shuddering uncontrollably, her grip on the headboard the only thing that keeps her from collapsing face first onto the mattress as she comes again.

He keeps moving inside her, hands coming to her hips and then he groans and curls over her, reaching around to turn her head sideways so he can kiss her. She moans into his mouth as he pulls out of her and he makes a shushing sound against her lips.

“So,” she says, a slow smile spreading across her face as she sees the way Oliver is looking at her, flushed and wide eyed and a little (deservingly) smug. “I think maybe you were right.”

His fingers stroke over her hip. “About what?”

Felicity purses her lips and sneaks a kiss, reaches down and weaves her fingers through his. “We’re gonna have to talk to about this.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year darlings!

_There's things I wanna say to you, but I'll just let you live_  
_Like if you hold me without hurting me_  
_You'll be the first who ever did_  
-Lana Del Rey, Cinnamon Girl

Felicity comes over to the penthouse the next afternoon when they’re both done with classes for the day. When Oliver lets her in she offers him a tight smile and follows him to his room, paces in front of his windows as he shuts the door and walks around to sit on the edge of his bed. When she left yesterday they agreed to take the night apart to think about what they both want and reconvene today to talk it out. As far as he’s concerned there isn’t much to discuss - they’re friends, they happen to have incredible sexual chemistry, they owe it to themselves to at least explore that, right?

But as he watches her pace back and forth, her phone clutched in her hands, he starts to think that maybe this is going to be way more complicated than he was hoping it would be.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

“I made a list,” she blurts out, flashing her phone screen at him.

“You what?”

“If we’re going to add sexual activity to the things included in our friendship then we need to set some ground rules,” Felicity declares. “So I uh, made a list to get us started.”

Oliver shrugs. “Okay.”

“Really?” she asks, looking a little shocked that he agreed so easily.

Oliver grins. “I’m fine with following a few rules if it means we can keep doing this.”

“Okay then.” Felicity looks down at her phone for a second. “Okay, rule number one” -

“Wait, wait, wait,” he interrupts. “How many are there?”

“I don’t know, a few,” she says defensively. “I had a lot to think about.”

He laughs and waves a hand at her. “Okay, lay them on me.”

She straightens her back and clears her throat. “As I was saying, rule number one - birth control.”

He furrows his brow. “Are condoms an issue?”

“No, no definitely not, I’m all about the safe sex! It’s just, actually, I have an IUD and I’m clean, so if you are” -

“I am,” he says quickly.

“Okay, I am too.” Felicity looks like she’s trying not to die of embarrassment which he finds kinda hilarious. “So, um, do you want to ditch the condoms then?”

His eyes widen at the idea of it, being inside her with no barriers. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Well I’m already on birth control and we’re both clean, so I guess they’re not strictly necessary…”

“Okay,” he hedges. “If they aren’t necessary.”

“Okay, then, so we’re in agreement there, moving on,'' she says briskly. “Monogamy.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Okay?”

“How do you feel about being - sexually, not romantically, obviously, I know we’re not like, _dating_ \- monogamous for as long as we’re doing this? Like if that’s, um, gonna be a problem for you I get it, I’ve just never… I don’t know if I want to do this if you’re also” -

“Felicity.” Oliver tried not to laugh. “I’m more than okay with that.”

She perks up a little. “Yeah?”

He grins and gives her a deliberate once-over. “Let’s just say I’m very satisfied with what I’m getting and I have no need to go looking elsewhere for anything.”

“Oh.” She straightens and gives him a small smile. “The feeling is mutual.”

His smile widens. “Good to know.”

“Okay. Cool. Um, so, next one. Rule number three: the friendship comes first.”

“Of course,” he agrees.

“Meaning,” she continues. “That if this starts to affect our friendship in a negative way, we stop. Or if one of us starts to develop, um, romantic feelings, we stop before anyone gets hurt.”

“Is that something you’re worried about?”

She twists her fingers around her ponytail. “I just don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“I know,” he says carefully. “I don’t want that either.”

“Okay. So we’re in agreement that if this starts affecting our friendship we call it quits.”

He scratches the back of his neck. “What if we agree to table this particular point unless it becomes relevant?”

“Oliver.” She looks at him like he’s being hopelessly naive. “This sort of dovetails into my next point. If one of us starts to develop feelings for someone else we stop too. We need to be realistic here.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that we can’t go into this assuming this is going to be a long term thing!” Now Felicity looks upset. “You’re graduating soon and I’m not even halfway done with school, or what if you meet the love of your life tomorrow or” -

“Hey, hey, slow down.” Oliver jumps up and walks over to her, catches her wrist in his hands. “I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself here.” 

She doesn’t pull away but she doesn’t look happy either. “I’m just trying to put some guardrails in place to stop us from getting hurt.” 

“I know,” he tells her. “But do you think we could maybe focus on figuring out what this is first before talking about how it’s going to end?”

“I thought this was just sex,” she shoots back. 

“Hey.” When she doesn’t look at him Oliver gently shakes her arm. “Felicity. You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Do I?” she snaps.

He frowns at her. “Are you mad at me?”

“No!” she says quickly. “I’m just…”

“What?”

She looks up at him and god, sometimes he forgets how young she is. She looks beautiful, and afraid, and when he cups her cheek she presses it into his palm, and blinks rapidly like she’s trying not to cry.

“Oliver,” she murmurs.

“Yeah?”

She blinks again and looks down. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whispers.

Something in his chest cracks wide open and he crushes her to his chest, Felicity makes a little whimpering sound and tucks her head under his chin as he wraps his arms around her. “I won’t,” he says softly. “You know I would never want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” she sniffs.

“Hey, hey, that’s not gonna happen.” He cups the back of her head and closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and tries to project an aura of calm and security. “No matter what ends up happening I’m always going to be in your life, okay? You don’t need to worry about that.”

She lifts her head and she isn’t crying but her bottom lip is trembling. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

“I don’t think we should tell anyone, that we’re... you know. Friends with benefits, I guess, for lack of a better term. Sara could probably handle it but Laurel…”

“Yeah,” he agrees heavily. “I think you’re probably right about that.”

“I just, I… I really want to keep doing this with you, and maybe that makes me selfish but” -

“Whoa whoa, hey. Felicity, you aren’t selfish.”

“I just don’t want anyone to get hurt,” she says tearfully.

“I know,” he murmurs. “That’s why you’re a good person.”

She twists her mouth to the side. “I don’t know, can I be a good person when all I really want to do is fuck my stepsister’s ex-boyfriend?”

“Wow.” His eyes go wide. “Is that how you think of me?”

“What?”

“Felicity, Laurel and I broke up months ago. _She_ broke up with me, does that mean she gets to dictate who I can and can’t be with?”

“No,” Felicity says hesitantly. “But that still means I’m doing something that could hurt her.”

“She won’t get hurt, because she doesn’t have to know. But Felicity, don’t you think that if Laurel really loves you she’d want you to be happy, even if it meant being happy with me?”

She looks doubtful. “I don’t know.”

“I just think, maybe you and I could at least figure out what this even is first before worrying about how it might affect Laurel.”

“Okay.” Felicity sighs. “I guess that makes sense.”

He kisses her, very softly, just brushing his lips against hers a few times until she hums and kisses him back. “How about we take a break from talking?” he suggests.

She looks at him with hazy eyes and perfectly parted lips. “Can we - would it be okay if we, um, if we just kissed for awhile?”

“Of course,” he murmurs, and walks her backwards towards his bed. “We can kiss for as long as you want.”

*

The next night he and Felicity have separate plans already, she’s going with Caitlin to a party hosted by some guys in Caitlin’s organic chemistry lecture and Oliver’s staying home to work on his microeconomics paper.

“I’m sorry, you have to do what now?” Tommy says in disbelief when Oliver informs him that he’s spending Friday night at home. “Oh, wait, let me guess. You didn’t get any of it done on Wednesday when you and Felicity were _studying_ because you were too busy being a dick and blasting music in your room for your own entertainment to do any work on your own?”

“Busted,” Oliver says weakly.

He wonders briefly if Tommy is using _studying_ as a euphemism for sex but from the way Tommy said it it sounds like he thinks Oliver and Felicity were screwing around metaphorically, not literally. Oliver is honestly a little shocked Tommy and his study group didn’t hear him and Felicity the other day but then again, they live in a penthouse with bedrooms far from the main room and he was blasting his music pretty loud. Apparently Tommy just assumed Oliver was doing it to be annoying, not to cover up the sounds of him and Felicity hooking up.

“The part I don’t get is why you waited until Friday _night_ , aka, prime pussy catching time.”

“I’ve got to do it sometime,” Oliver reasons, kicked back on the couch with his laptop balanced on his thighs. “Also, I really wouldn’t use that phrase anywhere near Sara unless you wanna get punched in the throat.”

“Noted, not that I’d be dumb enough to do that. Seriously, last chance, you sure you don’t want to come out with me?”

“Nah, I’m good, I really do need to work on this.”

You’re scaring me man.” Tommy shakes his head as he puts on his jacket. “Truly, I’m terrified right now.”

“Oh get out of here already, I’m trying to work.”

“Words I swear on my mother’s grave you’ve never spoken before.”

Oliver rolls his eyes at him. “Overdramatic much?”

“Seriously Ollie, if you’re on the verge of having a nervous breakdown that’s something a roommate should know.”

“What part of ‘have to work on a paper’ translated to having a breakdown?” Oliver asks, mystified.

“Because it came out of your mouth!”

“Tommy,” Oliver laughs. “I’m fine, I swear, I’d just really like to not fail out of college.”

Tommy pockets his keys. “Alright then. Have a good night with your computer.”

Oliver waves to him as Tommy leaves and locks the door behind him. Oliver turns the tv on for background noise, powers up his laptop, and begins to work on his outline.

*

Three hours later he’s made progress on a decent rough draft and eaten half a bag of lime flavored tortilla chips. He's thinking about saving his paper and calling it a night when his phone rings from where it’s face down on the coffee table. He stretches out to grab it and sees Felicity’s face on the screen, a picture he took of her on her birthday last year. She’s wearing a pink sparkly dress and a gold crown rests on top of her curled hair and she’s laughing so hard her eyes are shut.

“Hey,” he says when he answers. “How’re you?”

“Hey, Oliver? It’s Caitlin.”

“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately. “Where’s Felicity?”

“She’s fine! She’s totally fine, it’s just that the party we were at had brownies, you know, _brownies_ , and we each had one, and it turns out they had chopped nuts in them, like, in the _batter,_ which, honestly, what kind of sadist does that” -

“Caitlin!” he shouts. “Is Felicity okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s fine, I used her Epi pen on her, thank _god_ she brought it, and then we went to the ER just to be safe. She’s all good, the doctor’s about to discharge her.”

“You guys at Starling General?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you need a ride?”

“That would be _amazing_ ,” she drawls, and he wonders for a second if she’s fucked up or just relieved.

He sighs into the phone. “I’ll come pick you up.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Yeah. See you soon.”

He hangs up and rubs his forehead, overwhelmed by the rush of fear he’d felt and then the total sweet relief only seconds later at hearing Felicity was okay. He takes a few deep breaths and jogs to his room to put on a pair of shoes, grabs his phone and keys and tugs on a sweatshirt. He locks up the penthouse before taking the elevator down to the garage and gets in his car, starts the engine, throws it into reverse and drives up to the gate, fingers fumbling as he scans his card, and slams on the gas when the gate slides open for him.

It’s late at night so there isn’t much traffic but the sidewalks are jammed full of people out partying, lined up outside clubs and stumbling into pizzerias, all night diners, taquerias. Oliver drives slowly, fingers tapping anxiously against the steering wheel as he makes his way through Starling City.

When he gets to the ER he put his hazards on and parks in the circular driveway outside the entrance, and gets out of the car. Caitlin and Felicity are waiting for him on a bench next to the sliding glass doors, both of them wearing jackets zipped up over short party dresses and high heels. When she sees him Felicity's bottom lip trembles and she reaches for him as he crouches down in front of her and pushes her hair back to examine her face.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” he asks softly. “You okay?”

“Oliver.” Felicity’s eyes are wide and a little teary. “We are _so_ hungry.”

He stares at her. “What?”

“We’re _starving,_ ” Caitlin adds.

Oliver looks between her and Felicity, taking in their black rimmed eyes, the plastic hospital bracelet on Felicity’s wrist, the glitter on their cheeks, the way Caitlin’s arms are wrapped around Felicity, Felicity’s head on Caitlin’s shoulder.

“Are you two high?” he asks incredulously.

“No,” Felicity giggles. “I don’t know. Maybe. Possibly. I mean, I had epinephrine, which, _whew_ , and the high from the brownie kicked in later, I think? I dunno, I went from normal, to eating a brownie, to getting all _you know_ , and then I felt fine once I got the Epi but after we came here I started to feel a little, um, like, I _know_ what happened wasn’t funny” -

“It wasn’t!” Caitlin gives her a deadly serious look. “That was _not funny_ , Felicity!”

“I know but… it _feels_ funny,” Felicity giggles. “Like, bodies are so stupid. I can’t even eat an innocent pot brownie without risking death!”

“That’s so _stupid!_ ” Caitlin shrieks, and both girls howl with laughter.

“Oh my god,” he mutters.

“I told you we had brownies!” Caitlin exclaims.

“You didn’t mention they were pot brownies!”

“I thought that was obvious!”

“I feel good,” Felicity says, sounding a little dazed. “I don’t think I’m high. I’m just a little, like, floaty. And wow, Oliver, your eyes are _really_ blue, are they always this blue? I know they’re blue but they look _sparkly_ blue.”

He shakes his head at them. “Alright, come on.”

Felicity gives him a wide eyed stare. “Where are we going?”

“I thought you were hungry, we can stop at Big Belly Burger.”

Both girls cheer and lean forward to trap Oliver in a hug that smells like strawberry vodka and floral perform. He shakes them off and helps Felicity to the car, Caitlin clinging to her like a starfish. They both get into the backseat and sing along to the radio as he drives them to Big Belly Burger, and Oliver’s never felt more like a babysitter in his life but the two of them are being so hilarious he can’t really be mad about it. 

When they get there he parks on the street and the girls tumble out of the car, Oliver ends up holding onto one of them with each hand as they walk down the sidewalk to the restaurant and go inside.

“Whoa,” Caitlin mumbles, flipping the hood of her jacket over her hair. “Is it me or is it like, really bright in here?”

Felicity clutches onto Oliver’s arm as she looks around. “I like it. It’s pretty.”

“How stoned are you guys anyway?” he mutters.

“Shh!” Caitlin gives him a hysterical look and literally hides behind his shoulder. “What if other people can tell?”

High enough for paranoia, he concludes, and leads both girls over to a booth toward the back of the restaurant next to a window. “Sit, be quiet. You’re fine.”

“Oh god,” Caitlin moans, and pulls Felicity into the booth with her. “I think I’m a little fucked up.”

“No, no, you’re okay,” Felicity tells her enthusiastically. “Look, the lights are sparkling.” Felicity points out the window at the lights flickering outside. “Look at the pretty lights, Caitlin.”

Felicity pillows her head on Caitlin’s shoulder and gives Oliver a bleary smile across the table. 

_You okay?_ , he mouths, and she nods and reaches over to pat his hand while Caitlin leans back against her and stares out the window. When the waitress comes he orders for all of them because Caitlin and Felicity are barely holding it together, curled up on their side of the booth giggling hysterically into their menus. 

They quiet down when the food comes, happily munching on fries and dipping them into Oliver’s milkshake. The glitter on their faces sparkles in the bright lighting, ketchup dripping over Felicity’s lips as she eats a fry right out of Caitlin’s hand and he wants to lick it off but he can’t so he sits there and sips his milkshake instead, watches Felicity glitter and shine as she and Caitlin whisper into each other’s ears, share sticky lip gloss that makes their mouths look like they’re smeared with honey.

He can tell they’re crashing by the time they’ve finished their fries, Felicity folds her arms on the table and drops her head onto them, and Caitlin burrows into her shoulder, licking salt off her fingers. He pays the check and they walk back to his car, Caitlin types her address into his phone and Oliver drives to her building, parks outside the front entrance and puts his hazards on. Both girls get out of the backseat and hug for a long time on the sidewalk before Felicity gets into the passenger seat and shuts the door.

“Hi,” she says softly, leaning across the console to hug his right arm. “Thank you, for picking us up.”

“You’re welcome.” He watches through her window until Caitlin is safely inside before shifting back into drive. “You wanna go home?”

She snuggles her cheek against his shoulder. “Yes please.”

“Buckle up,” he reminds her.

She does her seatbelt and leans sideways again, getting as close as she can while still being buckled in. Oliver stretches his right arm over her shoulder and drives left handed. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I feel very… _sparkly_.”

He swallows down a laugh. “How strong was that brownie?”

“I dunno, I’ve never tried pot before.”

“Fair point. The doctors said you were okay though?”

“Mhmm.”

He sighs and holds her a little closer. “Good.”

When he gets to her building he parks in a spot down the block instead of the fifteen minute only parking zone outside the entrance. “I’ll go in with you.”

Felicity gives him a panicked look. “What about Sara?”

“I picked you up from the ER, I think Sara would understand,” he points out gently. “Honestly, she’d probably kick me in the balls if I didn’t. She isn’t going to think we’re hooking up just because I wanted to make sure you got home okay after what happened.”

“Oh.” Felicity unbuckles her seatbelt. “I guess that makes sense.”

He turns off the engine and meets Felicity on the sidewalk, checks the parking sign to make sure he won’t get a ticket if he ends up staying late and locks the car. She wraps her arm around his waist and they walk to her building; she digs her keys out of her little bag and unlocks the front door for them. Oliver follows her inside and waits for the elevator with his arms around her shoulders; when it comes they step inside and Felicity hits the button for her floor and turns around in his arms.

“Hey,” she says softly, and tilts her face up for a kiss. “I really am okay but it was scary there for a moment. Kiss and make it all better?”

They kiss until the elevator stops at her floor and Oliver leads her out of it and down the hallway, leans against the wall while Felicity unlocks the door to her apartment, and follows her inside. The lights are off in the living room to the right, but when they hook a left past the foyer they find Sara in the kitchen, sitting on the counter in a cropped sweater and a pair of underwear drinking straight out of a bottle of flavored Svedka. 

“Hey!” she cries out when she sees them, and slides off the counter. “I didn’t know you two went out together.”

“Oh we didn’t, I’m just her ride,” Oliver says, resting his hands on Felicity’s shoulders in a way that he hopes reads affectionate yet platonic.

“I ate a pot brownie and it had nuts in it and Caitlin had to give me my Epi pen so we went to the ER and then Oliver picked us up and bought us Big Belly Burger ‘cus we got really high and I don’t think I like it,” Felicity says in a rush, and bursts into tears.

“Baby girl!” Sara rushes over and throws her arms around Felicity, reaching around her for Oliver so Felicity’s trapped between them in a hug. 

“I’m sorry,” Felicity cries. “I’m so stupid.”

“You aren’t stupid, you’re a college student who went to a party,” Oliver soothes. “And you were smart enough to bring your Epi pen.”

“What have I told you about not eating anything at a party that you didn’t see come out of a package?” Sara presses.

“Lesson learned,” Felicity mumbles. “Trust me.”

Sara strokes her hair and looks over Felicity’s head at Oliver. “You’re lucky you have me and Ollie looking out for you. You gotta be more careful, honey.”

“Sara,” Oliver cautions.

“I’m just saying,” Sara murmurs. “We love you, we don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” Felicity sniffs.

“You don’t have to say sorry,” Oliver tells her. “You’re nineteen, you did something stupid. It happens.”

“And it’ll happen again if you don’t learn from it,” Sara says.

_What are you doing?_ he mouths to Sara.

“It won’t!” Felicity insists, her face buried in Sara’s shoulder. “Please don’t tell my mom.”

“Oh, okay, I guess we can do that for you,” Sara says, like she’s thinking about it, as if they would ever snitch. 

“Thank you,” Felicity murmurs, and snuggles against Sara. “Mm, you’re so soft.”

Sara kisses Felicity’s head and smiles up at Oliver. “C’mon, I bet we can talk Ollie into making a pillow fort in the living room.”

“Ooo!” Felicity lifts her head and turns to give Oliver an excited look. “Can we have a sleepover?”

Sara laughs and gives him a flirtatious grin. “Yeah Ollie, wanna have a sleepover?”

_Trouble, trouble, trouble_ , whispers the little voice inside his head. 

Not that he ever listens to it.

“Gimme some of that.” He takes the vodka bottle from Sara and takes a long pull. “Okay ladies, let’s go make a fort.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has some angst in it but probably not in the place you’re expecting...

_Would like to think that you would stick around_  
_You know that I just die to make you proud_  
-Lana Del Rey, Love Song

Felicity wakes up on the floor, her face mashed into a throw pillow and Sara’s feet stacked on top of her thighs. Felicity is sandwiched between Sara and Oliver on a pile of pillows and couch cushions, half buried under a quilt. He’s stretched out on his side to her left, still in his jeans and sweatshirt, and Sara’s sprawled out on her back, asleep.

She rolls over, Sara’s feet sliding to the ground, and manages to smack into Oliver’s back, her forehead going straight into that space between his shoulder blades. He grunts, one hand reaching back to clumsily pat her head. Felicity rubs her eyes, she has no idea where her glasses are and she’s in the oversized sweatshirt and flannel shorts she changed into last night while Sara and Oliver had an absurdly serious conversation about the structural integrity of pillow forts while sharing Sara’s vodka, both of them drinking straight from the bottle. 

Oliver stretches his arms above his head and then cracks his neck. “Did we fall asleep on the floor?”

Felicity yawns. “I guess so.”

He rolls over onto his back and glances sideways at her, squints, and rubs his forehead. “How  
much did Sara and I drink?”

“Too much,” Sara moans, her eyes still closed. “Felicity, baby, why did you let us drink so much?”

“Excuse me, for one, I was high, and also, I'm not responsible for your life choices,” Felicity responds.

Sara blindly reaches for a throw pillow and tosses it in their direction, and it sails right across the room. “I’m too hungover to throw straight.”

“The tv is still on,” Oliver comments sleepily. “How the fuck did you talk me into watching Hallmark movies with you?”

Felicity giggles. “You’re sappy when you’re drunk.”

“Am not!”

Sara snorts. “Are too.”

“Stay out of this, Lance,” Oliver grumbles

“Hey, you didn’t have to drink just ‘cus I was.”

“Oh yeah, ‘cus hanging out with two fucked up people when I’m sober is so much fun.”

Felicity’s stomach tightens, she can never tell when Sara and Oliver are bickering for fun and when they’re having a coded fight, their bond built on years of play fighting and gentle teasing and hours and hours of their life stuck together in a backseat carpooling to and from school.

And of course, surviving the boat accident. The thing is, no one even really knows what _happened_ between Oliver and Sara last summer, they’ve been friends practically forever and they still are now, but something changed after the accident in a way Felicity can’t quite put her finger on.

He and Laurel were in a good place at the beginning of last summer, as far as everyone seemed to think anyway. Laurel was even whispering about getting engaged before she applied to law school, Felicity knows she wanted to get Oliver locked down by graduation. They’d been dating on and off since high school and always found their way back to each other, it was just assumed that they’d end up together. 

They were Oliver and Laurel. Everyone, Felicity included, thought they were meant to be.

And then Oliver decided to take his dad’s boat out on a joyride, and for some reason Sara went with him. 

When she thinks back on it, Felicity’s memories of that weekend are more like intense little flashes then a cohesive narrative:

Waking up in her attic bedroom in her mom and Lance’s house to the sound of Quentin screaming so loud she could hear it from two floors up.

Laurel, sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, blank faced, crying so quietly it was scarier than if she had screamed and wailed.

The clip of the news reporter saying that Oliver Queen had gone missing at sea that Felicity watched over and over again on her phone, sitting on the floor of the upstairs guest bathroom where no one could come looking for her so she could cry in peace.

Tommy picking her up and taking her and Thea to the penthouse to get a break from their parents, where he’d played Oliver’s favorite movies and ordered pizza and let them have Cokes with splashes of rum.

The announcement that Oliver and Sara had been rescued by a Chinese ship, those eighteen hours of agony waiting for politicians to cut through a ridiculous amount of red tape so they could get the Chinese government to put them on a plane back to the states.

Oliver and Sara never talked about what happened, why they were out there together, and it seemed too gauche for anyone to ask. They were both alive and unharmed, except for coming home with a few fresh scars apiece. Both of them claimed it happened from the boat sinking and no one has ever questioned it, they’ve never questioned anything; it didn’t seem to matter, what mattered is that they both came home.

Well, that’s not quite true.

It mattered to Laurel.

But as far as Felicity knows Oliver and Sara have never talked about it to anyone, why they did it, what happened between them, _to_ them.

What happens in the middle of the ocean stays in the middle of the ocean, she supposes.

“Ollie,” Sara whines. “I want pancakes.”

“How is that my problem?” Oliver snorts.

“Felicity, kick Ollie until he makes me pancakes.”

“I’m not doing that,” Felicity mumbles, miserable at being literally caught in the middle.

“Ol-lie, pan-cakes!” Sara chants. “Make! Me! Pancakes!”

“Stop being so annoying,” he grumbles.

“I’ll stop if you feed me.”

“Sara.”

“Please?” Sara begs. “Puh-lease? You know you’re the only one here who can cook.”

“Stop fighting,” Felicity whispers.

“I’ll make you pancakes if you make me coffee,” Oliver counters.

“Felicity, do we have coffee?”

Felicity sits up and climbs up onto the couch. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth.”

Oliver twists his head and then does some kind of ninja jump to join her on the couch. “Hey, hey, wait, are you okay? How’re you feeling?”

“I’m not the one with a hangover.”

“Don’t remind me,” Sara moans.

“Sara’s not the one who went to the ER last night.” Oliver frowns at her. “What’s wrong?”

Felicity pretends to look around for her glasses. “I just don’t like it when you guys fight.”

“Oh.” Oliver picks her glasses up from the coffee table and and hands them to her, and when she looks at him again he looks horribly guilty.

“We aren’t fighting,” Sara sighs, and starts extracting herself from a faux fur blanket. “That’s just how we talk to each other.”

Oliver and Sara share one of those looks over the top of Felicity’s head that makes her feel five years old again, trapped between her screaming parents with no way out, but Sara just stands up and yanks down the hem of her sweater.

“I’m gonna start a pot of coffee,” she announces. “Ollie, we’ve got pancake mix, eggs, milk and butter, that’s good, right?

He slings his arm around Felicity’s shoulders and to her surprise he kisses the side of her head. “Yeah. Got any fruit?”

Sara grins. “We have chocolate chips.”

*

“Stop.” Felicity smacks Oliver’s hand off her knee.

“But I’m bored,” he whines.

She slides a few inches away from him on his bed where they’re studying, or trying to study, but Oliver is being incredibly distracting. “Oliver, I really have to study.”

He pouts. “Felicity.”

“Look, what about this? You give me… give me an hour to study, no distractions, and if you can actually do that I’ll give you a reward,” she suggests cheekily.

He perks up. “What kind of reward? A _fun_ reward?”

“Maybe,” she teases.

His eyes gleam. “A _sexy_ reward?”

“One hour.” She picks up her phone and sets a timer. “Deal?”

He shakes her hand and rolls off the bed. “I’m just gonna… go somewhere where I’ll be less distracted.”

He goes over to his desk and sits down, plugs his headphones into his laptop and glances back at her. “One hour?”

“Yep.”

He smirks. “I’ll be waiting.”

“You do that.”

Oliver just looks at her and licks his lips, and Felicity lifts her textbook up to block his face from her view. He laughs and she flips over onto her stomach, reaching for a highlighter as she checks the timer on her phone: 58 minutes and 23 seconds to go.

To her surprise Oliver actually lets her study without distraction, he keeps himself occupied playing Grand Theft Auto while Felicity highlights and scribbles notes on Post-its that she slaps onto the pages of her book, takes the practice quiz at the end of the chapter twice when she’s finished reading the chapter and makes a set of flash cards. She even has enough time to run through them once before the timer on her phone goes off, loud enough that Oliver hears it through his headphones and take them off.

She puts all her stuff back in her backpack and walks over to where Oliver’s waiting for her at his desk, looking cautiously optimistic. “So do I get a reward for being a good boy?”

He says it sarcastically but Felicity goes with it, giving him a serious nod as she takes her glasses off and sets them on his desk. “Take your clothes off and sit on the end of the bed.”

He gives her an excited look and whips his shirt off. “Awesome.”

Felicity leans against his desk as Oliver takes all his clothes off and pads naked to his bed. The idea has been sitting in the back of her head for the past hour but now that it’s actually about to happen she’s a little nervous, it’s not like she’s never done this before but this isn’t anyone, this is Oliver. She wants him to like it, she wants it to be memorable, and as she crosses the room to him and kneels down onto the floor between his legs she feels the ghost of every single beautiful girl who’s been in her place, everyone who’s ever knelt at Oliver’s feet in worship, hoping for a shred of devotion back.

She feels so small like this, kneeling in front of him, hoping he’ll take what she offers. They still haven’t done much yet really, beyond kissing for a while the other day after officially agreeing on a set of guidelines, she’s only done this with a few guys, none of them him, and she has no idea what his expectations are.

“Felicity,” he murmurs.

When she looks up Oliver’s in soft focus, giving her a gentle smile as he reaches down to caress her cheek.

“Hey,” she says, trying to sound confident, like this is no big deal, like she isn’t afraid Oliver’s going to judge her and find her lacking. “Is this... is this cool with you?”

“Uh, yeah.” Oliver laughs a little. “Definitely not going to complain about this.”

“Good.” Felicity rests her hands on his thighs and tries to psych herself up. She’s done this before, she knows what she’s doing, it’s going to be fine. She holds one hand out to him. “Lick?”

Oliver gives her a wicked smile and holds her wrist, licks all the way from the base of her palm to her middle finger and back down. She exhales shakily and takes her hand back, wraps it around him and works it up and down a few times before taking him into her mouth. He exhales sharply and sinks one hand into her hair, right above the base of her ponytail. She breathes through her nose and tries different things, uses her tongue, takes him deep and then backs off, switches to her hands every so often to rest her jaw before sucking him down again. She can feel the flex of his thigh under her free hand, hear his breathing get more shallow as she swirls her tongue around.

Eventually she gets into a rhythm, zones out as she sucks and bobs her head, his fingers tangled in her hair. When she dares looking up at Oliver he seem totally blissed out - eyes half shut, head tipped back, his perfect abs contracting as he breathes. Felicity’s chest feels warm at the sight of him enjoying himself so much, she lets her eyes close and swallows him down again, humming when he twitches against her tongue.

“Felicity.” His voice sounds strained. “I’m…”

She speeds up, gripping him tightly at the base as she swirls and flicks her tongue, and Oliver groans. His fingers tighten in her hair as he lets out a sharp exhale and comes down her throat; she swallows and pulls off to breathe and wipe her mouth, resting her cheek on his thigh. She feels different now, looking up at him as Oliver stares down at her with heated eyes. She feels so powerful, she _did_ this, made him groan and come and look at her like she’s incredible, special, the only thing he sees.

“Get up here,” he says hoarsely.

She scrambled into his lap as her sweater dress rides up her thighs. She clutches onto his shoulders as Oliver slips a few fingers inside her underwear but instead of touching her he rubs the material between his fingertips.

“You got these all wet,” he murmurs in a low voice. “You should take them off.”

It isn’t an order, she knows Oliver wouldn’t tell her what to do, but there’s something about the way he says it that makes her go still, aware all at once just how badly she’s turned on. Felicity slides off his lap and steps out of her underwear, and when Oliver reaches for her she climbs back into his lap, crying out when he cups her between his legs and pushes a finger inside.

“Better?” he chuckles.

She buries her face in his shoulder and moans, her hips rolling desperately as he curls his finger. Oliver pushes his thumb against her and she jumps, clutching onto his biceps as she bites back a cry.

“You’re so amazing,” he says in a hot whisper, thumb moving in fast circles. “You make me feel so good, I just want to make you feel good too, I love making you come, I could do it all day and never get bored.”

She’s too overwhelmed to talk so she nods along to his words and shakes and shakes and works her hips and listens to Oliver detail all the ways he wants to make her come until she breaks apart.

*

That Thursday she goes out with Iris and Caitlin. Felicity meets them at a bar close to campus that does two for one frozen margaritas that come in huge blue glasses with slices of fruit on the rim. Barry shows up with Cisco and the five of them cram onto a single leather couch, the only seating available that isn’t at the bar. Felicity ends up half in Barry’s lap, leaning over him so she can listen to Caitlin and Cisco tell a story about some crazy professor who guest-taught their physics lecture.

She’s two drinks in when Iris squints and pokes Felicity with the toe of her electric blue stiletto. “Hey, isn’t that your sister?”

When Felicity turns around she sees Sara sandwiched between Oliver and Tommy at the bar, spinning her stool around in circles. She catches Felicity’s eye and brightens, holds her drink up and waves at Felicity to come over. 

“I’m going to go say hi,” Felicity says loudly over the music, and Barry helps her off the couch.

She walks across the bar, just drunk enough to move a little more loosely than normal, careful not to trip in her spike heeled ankle boots. Oliver’s watching her out of the corner of her eye, looking delicious in a pale blue button down and grey slacks, a cocktail held in one hand.

“Felicity!” Sara squeals and slides off her stool to hug her. “Hey baby girl!”

Felicity hugs Sara back, wondering how many drinks she’s had already. Sara’s friendlier when she gets drunk, unlike Laurel, who gets sharper and colder and more likely to say something nasty if provoked. “Hey,” she says back. “Hey guys.”

“Hey,” Oliver mutters. He doesn’t even look at her and it makes her stomach tighten as Felicity steps away from Sara.

Tommy holds his arm out to her. “C’mere Felicity, give Daddy some love.”

“You are such a sicko!” Sara exclaims, but Felicity is grateful for the respite from Oliver’s lukewarm greeting, she curls into Tommy and lays her head on his shoulder for a moment, and he bends down and kisses her forehead.

“Who’re you here with?” Sara asks.

“Oh, um, Caitlin, Iris, Cisco” -

“And Barry?” Oliver asks snidely.

Felicity blinks, stunned. He’s still slouched over his drink, sulking like she’s done something to him. “Yeah.”

Oliver tosses back his drink. “Good for you.”

“Ollie,” Sara murmurs.

“I’m going to go back to my friends now.” Felicity ducks her head so they can’t see her eyes fill with tears, and walks away.

She rushes back over to the couch and sits back down in Barry’s lap, curls into him and takes a few shaky breaths. His arms come around her as Barry dips his head close to her ear.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

She shakes her head and sniffs, surreptitiously wipes away her tears. “Nothing.”

She knows he doesn’t believe her but Barry just hugs her until she can pull it together enough to get up when Caitlin and Iris stand up to go to the bathroom and ask her to come with them. She can’t help but look back at Oliver as she walks towards the back hallway where the bathrooms are, and she’s surprised to see him staring at her coldly, his eyes dark.

She swallows and looks away, slings her arm around Caitlin’s waist and acts like it doesn’t bother her at all that Oliver’s acting like a dick for no reason. 

In the bathroom Felicity squishes into a stall with both Iris and Caitlin so they can all pee without waiting in line and then they crowd around the sinks to touch up their makeup; to Felicity’s relief she doesn’t look like she was crying.

“What was that about?” Caitlin asks while she apples a fresh layer of lipstick.

Felicity freezes, hands in her hair as she tightens her ponytail. “What was what about?”

“Oliver. He was staring at you, like this.” Caitlin does an imitation of Oliver’s broody face that makes Iris shriek with laughter.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Felicity lies.

Caitlin snorts. “Sure you don’t.”

Iris catches Felicity’s eye in the mirror as she dabs a little highlighter over the bridge of her nose. “Okay, what am I missing here? Is something going on with you and Oliver?”

“No! Of course not!” Felicity exclaims. 

Caitlin giggles. “You sure about that?”

“Caitlin,” Felicity pleads.

“Just saying, the guy dropped everything to pick us up last weekend and I may have been high as shit but trust me, he was super worried about you, it was _so_ obvious.”

“So? We’re friends.”

“Yeah, I dunno if he seemed worried like a friend.”

“How did he seem?” Iris asks curiously.

“Oh my god.” Felicity feels torn between crying again and laughing. “This is ridiculous.”

“Felicity.” Caitlin gives her the kind of serious face she only makes when she’s drunk. “Oliver is _gorgeous_.”

“So gorgeous,” Iris sighs.

“Yeah, no duh,” Felicity snaps. “What else is new? Water is wet, the sky is blue, Oliver Queen is extremely aesthetically pleasing. So what?”

“Ohmygod, did you just say Oliver Queen is here?” squeals a girl washing her hands a few sinks down.

Iris winks at the girl. “You’re damn right she did. He’s hot, right?”

“Iris!” Felicity exclaims.

“Oh come on, we’re just teasing,” Caitlin giggles. “Lighten up.”

A blonde with one of those faces that’s so perfectly symmetrical she looks more like a porcelain doll than a real flesh and blood person comes out a stall and joins them at the sinks. “I fucked him once,” she says casually. “He’s _insane_ in bed.”

All the girls in the bathroom stop talking and stare at the goddess bragging about her conquest while she washes her hands. Felicity feels a hot squirming sensation in her stomach as she catalogues the girl - long thick hair that’s a million different shades of blonde while still looking completely natural, long long legs, large breasts barely strapped into a gold bandage dress, a face that looks like it should be on the cover of a magazine. The kind of girl Oliver would fuck, a girl Felicity wouldn’t even bother comparing to herself because she knows she could never measure up anyway. Who would want her when they could have this impeccable, stunning creature? 

Her worst nightmare, standing right in front of her.

“You know Oliver?” Caitlin asks.

The girl glances at them in the mirror. “We’re… acquainted.”

“Acquainted?” Caitlin pushes.

The goddess smirks. “He made me come five times.”

Iris whistles, long and low. “Damn girl.”

“I’m gonna g-go get some, um, water, I need some water,” Felicity stutters, and rushes out of the bathroom.

Felicity stumbles down the hallway and because she has the worst luck in the entire fucking world she runs right into Oliver, who takes her by the wrist and she’s so startled she lets him pull her all the way toward a back alcove before she yanks her arm out of his grasp and wobbles back until she hits the wall.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she whisper-yells.

Oliver stares at her. “What’s wrong with _me?_ ”

“You - you completely ignore me all night and then you drag me back here like a caveman” -

“I’m not the one hanging all over another person right in front of you!”

“What the hell are you even talking about” -

“You’re the one who said we weren’t going to be with anyone else”-

“I’m not!” she exclaims.

“Then why are you all over Barry?” he spits.

“Barry? Seriously, _Barry?_ We’re friends Oliver, oh my god”-

“That’s not what it looked like from where I was sitting.”

“Oh my god,” she says faintly. “You’re jealous. Of Barry Allen.”

“I’m not jealous” -

“Oh, okay, then explain to me why you’re acting like a complete asshole” -

“Because you’re like, _sitting_ on him” -

“Oliver, you are being _ridiculous_.”

“Really? So if I was sitting there at the bar flirting with some girl you wouldn’t be mad” -

“For your information, I just had to listen to the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen up close tell everyone in the fucking ladies room how many times you made her come when you guys fucked, so I’m pretty sure I win!”

Oliver gapes at her. “What?”

Felicity lets out a frustrated sigh. “You know what? This, this, whatever it is, it’s stupid. I don't know how to convince you that nothing is going on with me and Barry when you obviously aren’t even interested in listening to me.”

She starts to walk away but Oliver grabs her hand and twirls her around to box her in against the wall. “So that’s it?” he asks in a rough voice. “The second things get hard you run away?”

She’s so instantly furious that she pushes against his stupidly broad chest. “You promised me you wouldn’t hurt me! You said it and I believed you, because I’m an idiot” -

“Felicity.” Oliver looks stricken. “You’re not an idiot.”

She blinks back tears, her throat tight. “You can’t do this to me. You can’t jump to conclusions and treat me like shit without even trying to talk to me.”

“I - I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he says weakly.

“Well, you did.”

A muscle in his jaw twitches. “I didn’t mean to.”

“That doesn’t make it okay!”

“I know!” he says quickly. “I know that! I just mean... shit. I saw you with him, and I, I just…”

“Assumed I was fucking him?”

“No! Jesus, I just, I… look, I know what I’m like, okay?”

She stares blankly at him. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Felicity, come on. Barry’s in your year and he’s all into science and the nerdy stuff you get and you have all these things in common, and you’re always talking about him” -

“Because we’re _friends_.”

“We’re friends,” he says sullenly.

“Barry and I aren’t that kind of friends.”

“But you are friends. You’re… the two of you would… it would make sense if you liked him like that.”

Felicity ponders for the first time that it might actually be possible that Oliver Queen, one of the wealthiest, sexiest people on Earth, has insecurities just like everyone else. “But I don’t.”

“Maybe you should,” he says quietly.

“ _Excuse me?_ ”

“You said it yourself, Felicity. I hurt you even when I wasn’t really trying to, I was just… I was being petty, I get it, okay?”

“Oliver” -

“I always do this,” he says tightly. “I screw things up. I cheat and I lie and I hurt you and I swear, I never wanted to do that and I know it doesn’t matter now but Felicity, I’m going to mess up, you know me, I always mess things up with girls and maybe it would be better for you in the long run if” -

She grabs his face in her hands and kisses him, and Oliver kisses her back for a second before pulling away with a shocked expression on his face.

“Why did you do that?” he asks softly.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Mostly because you were talking a lot of shit about my best friend and I wanted you to stop.”

“Felicity” -

“If you ever talk to me that way again we’re done,” she says seriously, running her thumb along the back of his neck. “I mean it. No more chances.”

He looks at her with those big blue eyes and there’s some part of her that wonders if she’s just another weak stupid girl blinded by that pretty face. “Are you mad at me?”

“Of course I’m mad at you!”

He sighs, works his jaw. “So what can I do?”

“Like, you want to fix it?” she asks.

“I’d like to try,” he says quietly.

“Okay. How about this? You are going to take all of us out for pizza; we were going to go anyway.”

He squints at her. “That’s it?”

“Well you’re going to pay, of course.”

“Of course.”

“And you’re going to be nice to Barry,” she says strictly. “He’s been nothing but nice to you and by the way, he was only comforting me because you hurt my feelings so from now on consider yourself his best friend, got it? Whatever weird issue you have with him, you need to get over it.”

Oliver doesn’t look happy about it but he nods obediently. “Okay. I can do that.”

“You better,” she warns, and he rolls his eyes.

“You gonna milk this for all you can, huh?” he asks.

“You _hurt_ me,” she reiterates. “And maybe I don’t want to do whatever the hell we’re doing anymore if you can’t even be nice to my friends.”

“I guess that’s fair,” he says stiffly.

“And Oliver?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think next time this happens” -

“It won’t!” he says quickly.

“Okay.” She chews on her bottom lip. “I just think, maybe, we should try, um, talking about how we feel before we jump to conclusions and flip out at each other.”

He gives her a ghost of a smile. “You mean act like adults?”

She laughs bitterly. “Pretty sure there are plenty of adults who can’t do that.”

“Hey.” Oliver’s hands settle over her waist. “I'm really, really sorry. It’s okay that you’re mad, I deserve it. But I’m - I want to keep trying at - this, whatever it is. So if I have to buy pizza for everyone or adopt Barry as my de facto little brother I’m okay with that. I’d… there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you, you know that, right?”

She stares at him, she does know that, at least abstractly, but she isn’t sure he’s ever said it so explicitly before. “I know,” she says softly.

“Okay.” Oliver sighs like he’s relieved. “You wanna hang back here and make out for a few minutes?”

“Oh, that’s hilarious. Nice try, buddy.” Felicity tweaks his cheek. “C’mon, let’s go find everyone and let them know they’re getting pizza courtesy of mister big bucks right here.”

“Please don’t ever call me that in front of another person,” Oliver pleads.

Felicity giggles. “I’ll think about it.”

“Hey, c’mere.” He pulls her to his chest and Felicity lets herself relax into it, it’s not her fault Oliver gives really good hugs. “Are we okay?”

“We will be,” she says softly. “I - I know we’re both going to make mistakes, but you… I know you don’t want to mess this up. I don’t either.”

“I know,” he says softly.

“Do you think this is a terrible idea?” she asks. “What we’re doing?”

His arms tighten around her. “Probably.”

She looks up at him, wondering if it’s everyone’s best interest to walk away now before she really gets hurt. “I don’t want to stop,” she confesses.

“I don’t want to either,” he says.

They end up making out in the alcove until their phones both start buzzing with texts from Sara and Caitlin and they walk out five minutes apart, just in case, and when they all meet up at the front entrance to get pizza none of their friends say anything about it.


	8. Chapter 8

_You lose your way, just take my hand_  
_You're lost at sea, then I'll command your boat to me again_  
_Don't look too far, right where you are, that's where I am_  
Lana Del Rey, Mariners Apartment Complex

Oliver wakes up choking on air, jackknifing up in bed as he coughs and shivers, eyes blinking rapidly in the dark. The shades are half-up and Starling City glitters out the windows, because he’s home, in bed, tangled up in his blankets.

Not drowning in the China Sea.

He manages to extricate himself from the bedding and swings over the side of his bed so he can put his feet on the floor, feel the solidness of it, the stillness, reminding himself he’s on land and not the water. He hunches over and gasps and gasps, hands gripping the edge of the bed.

“Oliver.” Felicity crawls across the bed and he flinches when her hand trails across his back, he forgot she was sleeping over.

She climbs over him and crouches down between his legs on the floor. “Hey, hey, it’s just me. Oliver, what’s wrong?”

He rubs his eyes and squints at the clock on the nightstand, it’s almost six. “I’m okay.” His voice comes out rusty.

“Did you have a nightmare?” she whispers.

He drops his hands to his thighs and tries to breathe normally. “It’s fine.”

Felicity curls her fingers around his wrists. “Oliver.”

“I think I’m gonna go for a run.”

“What? Oliver” -

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he snaps, and she yanks her hands away like he’s burned her.

Felicity’s eyes shimmer in the dark, like she’s about to cry. “I’m sorry.”

He drops his head and curls over her. “No, c’mere, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to” -

“It’s okay.” She leans her head against his thigh. “I’d have nightmares too.”

He runs his fingers through her hair. “I don’t like talking about it.”

“Okay.”

“Go back to bed, okay?”

She tilts her face up to him. “You’re seriously going running right now?”

He works his jaw. “It helps.”

She sighs but pops up from her crouch and crawls back onto the bed. “Okay.”

“Hey, I’ll just, I’ll just do a short one. Stay here, okay? I’ll make you breakfast when I come back.”

He’s afraid she’ll turn him down but Felicity just yawns and crawls back under the covers. “Okay.”

He changes into a tee shirt and a pair of track pants while she watches him with sleepy eyes, puts on his running shoes and grabs his headphones. He kisses her forehead on his way out and she gives him a half-smile as she stretches out on her side.

“Come back soon?” she asks hesitantly, like she’s secretly afraid he’s going to leave and never come back.

He dips down and gives her a real kiss. “Yeah. Think about what you want for breakfast.”

She sneaks one more kiss and snuggles back against the pillow. “Okay.”

He grabs his house keys from the dish in the foyer and locks the door behind him, and takes the elevator down to the lobby. It’s still dark out, he puts on his headphones and starts his running playlist, goes outside and immediately curses himself for forgetting to wear a jacket. He breaks into a jog, shaking his arms out to warm them up, gives himself a few blocks before building his stride up into a run.

It’s grounding, the feel of his shoes hitting the pavement, the cold air, the sound of early morning traffic. He loves Starling City and there’s something about it at this time of day, when everything is just waking up. Delis and coffee shops and diners shine neon lights in the early morning twilight, trucks out making deliveries honk and flash hazard lights, city buses cough and sputter exhaust.

He’s home. He’s home.

He cuts his route in half and makes it back to the penthouse in half an hour, soaked in sweat and a little jittery still but the panic has subsided, he feels like he’s back in his body again, safe. He stops in the kitchen to get a pot of coffee brewing before going to his room; when he opens the door Felicity is sitting up in bed wearing his old Rockets hoodie, watching the morning news on her tablet.

“Hey!” She drops the tablet next to her on the bed and gives him a soft smile. “You’re back.”

He takes his keys and phone out of his pocket and bends down to untie his shoes and kick them off. “I started coffee.”

She stretched out on her side and kicks the covers off, delicious bare legs against grey sheets. “Thank you.”

“I need to take a shower,” he tells her, toeing off his socks. 

She sits up and tilts her head. “Okay.”

He pauses, watching the way the hem of his sweatshirt rides up her thighs. “Want to take one with me?”

Felicity smiles and now that the sun's coming up his room is flooded with light and she looks like a golden, blessed thing, an angel sent to him by whatever deity spared his life that night in the sea. Oliver wonders if she has any idea of how weak he feels around her, like he would do anything, say anything, buy her the world for only the price of her fleeting smile.

She goes into the bathroom with him and they strip down to nothing, and he doesn’t miss the way her eyes rove over him. She’s quiet as she follows him into the shower and he doesn’t know if she’s just not fully awake yet or if she’s feeling cautious after what happened, how he woke up shaking, the aftermath of his dream the ghost in the room neither of them want to acknowledge. 

He has her step back so he can turn the water on and waits for it to get hot before having Felicity stand in front of him, his back to the spray, and it would make sense for him to have issues with water right now but he doesn’t with this, water that comes out at a precisely set temperature and pressure, water manipulated by man, his body held in the luxury of civilization, back in the land of marble tiles and scented body gel and cushioned bath mats.

And Felicity, droplets of water collecting like pearls against her collarbone, her breasts, her forehead, like some water fairy, a divine being glowing in the soft bathroom light.

“C’mere.” He holds his arms out to her and she shuffles forward, snuggling into him.

“You’re so warm.” She wraps her arms around his waist, soft breasts brushing against his chest.

She is too, he runs his hands down her back, traces the curve of her hips and waist. He cups her shoulders, runs his thumbs down the taut line of her biceps, explores the contours of her ribs and shoulder blades.

“Switch?” he asks.

The two of them carefully spin around so she can tilt her head back into the spray. Oliver’s hypnotized by her, the long line of her white throat, the slight arch of her back, rivulets of water running down between her breasts. He reaches for his shower gel without looking away, pours some into his hands and begins to soap up. Felicity stretches and curves forward, letting the water pound down on her back. When he’s finished washing himself he gestures to Felicity and she moves towards him, wet hair sticking to the back of her neck.

“Do you want to rinse?” she asks.

“Sure.”

They switch again, Oliver stands under the water until all the soap is washed away, and reaches for the shower gel again. “Turn around.”

She licks her lips and spins around, leaning back against him. He squeezes shower gel into his hands and rubs them together before spreading them out over her shoulders. Felicity sighs as he sweeps his hands down her back, her arms, her sides. He slides them over to the front of her chest and she rests her head back against him, her eyes half-shut, one hand shooting out to brace herself against the tiled wall when he cups her breasts in his palms. Her back is plastered to his chest and he can feel the way her breathing begins to change as he starts to massage his hands around her, fingers tugging at her nipples until they stiffen. He releases them and wraps his left arm around her waist as he creeps his other hand down her stomach, over her pubic bone, fingers dipping into the crease of one hip.

“Oh,” she sighs, letting go of the wall to grip his forearm with both hands as she widens her stance. “I could get used to starting my day like this.”

He curves over her to kiss the side of her neck as he walks his fingers through wet folds, warm flesh. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Felicity groans and tightens her grip on his arm. 

He works his fingers against her in slow strokes, listening to her breathing get shallow as he touches her, no rush, no ulterior motive other than to feel good, to remember the good parts of living in a body, the pleasure and the pulse of the blood inside him and the feeling of Felicity rolling her ass back against him until he’s hard, his stomach tightening when she starts whimpering in the back of her throat, fingernails digging into his skin until she jerks in his arms with a sharp cry. He keeps touching her until she curls over, reaching down to pull his hand away. She flips her hair back from her face and looks over her shoulder at him with wide eyes, her cheeks pink.

“Time to get out.” Oliver reaches back to turn the water off and helps Felicity out of the shower.

He gets a clean towel and folds it over the counter next to the sink. “Here, get up here, I wanna fuck you like this, is that okay?”

She stares at him with her mouth open for a long moment and for a second he’s honestly scared she might tell him to fuck off and have a good time with his hand for semi-ordering her around like that, but then she nods _very_ enthusiastically, and Oliver lifts her by the waist to sit on the towel. She leans back a little and lifts her feet up so her heels rest of the edge of the counter, exposing herself to him, wet pink flesh and lean muscled thighs on full display and he steps between her legs as he starts to stroke himself. She watches him with dark eyes, one of her hands mindlessly dragging across her body, brushing between her legs, reaching out to cup his hip. Oliver stops touching himself and reaches for her thighs, pulling her to him and angling her hips back so he can guide himself into her.

He braces himself with one hand on the counter as he pushes inside, where she’s hot and wet and tight and it’s so good it makes him shiver. She grabs him by the backs of his shoulders, her legs pressing against his hips as he bottoms out inside her.

“You feel really good,” he says quietly, overwhelmed by the tightness of her around him, the way she’s looking up at him in wonder.

She gives him a dreamy smile that smacks the breath out of his lungs. “You too.” 

She rolls her hips a little and he takes that as permission to move, languidly rocking into her because he just wants to be here, inside her, Felicity’s body wrapped around him, small and soft and perfect and he’s so fucking lucky it makes him want to weep, that he survived, made his way back home withought knowing that a cold winter night months later he would find something magical in a girl he never allowed himself to think of that way until the night after she broke up with Cooper. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to have this, her, can’t totally believe they’re still doing this, even as he feels her pulse around him as he starts to speed up his pace.

He drives into her again and again, gratitude spreading like fire through his gut, that he gets this, has this, this beautiful brilliant young woman who looks at Oliver like he hung the moon.

Felicity starts to moan, long and low and repetitive. He keeps his rhythm the same, eyes shut as he buries his face in her shoulder and she tightens her grip on him, her thighs shaking against his hips. He breathes against her skin, listening to her moans increase in pitch as her chest heaves.

She lets her head fall back, her hips rolling against his. “Oliver! Oh! Oliver!” 

He groans low in his throat and drives into her, his mouth sucking on her jaw, her earlobe, hips snapping against her and then she goes tight around him, her arms holding him close to her body as she lifts her head to look at him, eyes impossibly big for one moment before they squeeze shut. He rams into her, fire in his veins and his heart, again and again until she spasms around him.

“Yes,” she gasps out. “Yes, oh, _oh! Oh my god, yes, yes, yes!_ ”

She writhes against him and Oliver’s drowning again but this time he’s drowning in her and it’s bliss, paradise, a salvation he didn’t know was even possible.

*

Oliver goes out with Tommy Thursday night, partly because he feels bad about not going out with him last weekend and partly because Felicity’s at Caitlin and Iris’s apartment working on a group presentation with Caitlin and Cisco for their Human, Evolution & Ecology class. Oliver doesn’t pretend that he totally understand Felicity’s major but he knows she’s doing Computer Science and Cisco and Caitlin are on a Biocomputation track, they all registered for the class together so they’d have built in friends to study with. 

He texts her while he’s getting dressed and she sends him back a pic of Caitlin and Cisco sitting on the floor staring intently at a laptop with a blurry Iris in the background. Oliver sends her a selfie of him in his midnight blue button down and grey slacks, just because, and she sends him back a string of heart eye emojis. He grins and pockets his phone, flips the lights and meets Tommy in the foyer, who’s pregaming with a glass of whiskey in one hand while he texts with the other.

“Okay, so some of the guys are going to Club Toxic, it’s Thirsty Thursday at La Flecha, what are you in the mood for?” Tommy asks him.

Oliver’s phone dings and he pulls it out of his pocket, expecting it to be Felicity again but it’s Sara: _Laurel dragged me to StarBar and I’m so bored, help meeee._

“Sara and Laurel are at StarBar,” he tells Tommy.

“And they invited _you?_ ”

“Sara just did.”

“And you want to go?”

“It sort of sounded like she could use reinforcements.”

Tommy raises an eyebrow. “You know this is a terrible idea, right?”

“Laurel and I have been broken up for months, I don’t think Sara would’ve asked me if she thought Laurel would flip out.”

“Ollie, I love you, I really do, but your level of stupidity and self-destructive naïveté is mind-blowing sometimes.” Tommy sighs and chugs back the rest of his drink, grabs Oliver’s black hooded leather jacket from the coat closet and tosses it to him before yanking on his peacoat. “Okay, let’s go. I can’t wait to see this shitshow.”

They call a car and take it across campus to StarBar and get in line outside the entrance of the bar, pay the ten dollar cover charge at the door and get their hands stamped with a fluorescent blue star before they’re let in. The decor is vaguely galaxy themed, all indigo and violet walls with tiny white lights everywhere, the ceiling painted a swirling inky blue-black. The bar runs along the wall to his right and black leather furniture is scattered around, music pounding from the back room where the dance floor is.

Oliver texts Sara and she directs them to a small table in a corner by the back wall, where she’s sitting on a loveseat alone drinking something cloudy blue out of a martini glass, wearing a very short black dress, her hair falling in messy-sexy waves around her face like she couldn’t be bothered to brush it but that’s Sara, the queen of looking cool without trying too hard. She tilts her face to them and they each deposit a kiss to her cheek before sitting down on the other loveseat.

“Where’s her highness?” Tommy looks around for a cocktail waitress to flag down.

Sara snorts into her drink. “At the bar. Where she’s been for over an hour.”

Tommy waves at a server, points at Sara’s drink and holds up two fingers. “So you’re here, why?”

Sara shrugs. “The drinks are good, the ladies are hot, so what if my sister only invited me out to make her feel better about getting shitfaced?”

“How are you supposed to make it better?” Oliver asks, mystified.

“Ah, you see, if I’m here then she can technically say we went out drinking together, which sounds way less pathetic than her drinking by herself,” Sara explains.

Oliver rubs his forehead, he and Laurel drank all the time when they were together and he never really thought about it, they were young and everyone around them drank too, and yeah, he did a few stupid things every once in awhile but it was never a major problem for either of them, although not much is ever a problem when you come from a family with enough money to make silly drunken transgressions go away. 

He’s heard things though, here and there, mostly from Felicity and Sara, little offhand comments, nothing big. But he really doesn’t know how Laurel’s doing, when she dumped him she made it pretty clear she wasn’t interested in being friends, at least not for awhile, and he’d accepted that he’d screwed things up permanently, made so many little mistakes over the years that when he finally made an epic error in judgement she had no good will left, no reason to forgive yet another disappointment.

“Two blue skies?” A cocktail waitress wearing a black shirt with little stars placed right over her breasts sets two cocktails down on the table.

“Thank you and keep ‘em coming, please.” Tommy slips the server a twenty and she winks as she walks away.

“What is this?” Oliver asks Sara, picking up his drink.

“Vodka, pineapple juice, lemon juice, and blue Curacao.” Sara swirls her glass around and rubs her smoky lined eyes, she’s a little pale under her makeup and her nail polish is chipped.

“Is their menu themed?” Tommy asks

Sara gestures loosely around the bar. “The whole fucking thing is themed.”

“I’m thinking of color themes,” Tommy says.

Oliver sips his drink. “For what?”

“Duh, for when we open our own bar.”

“That would require me getting into business school first, “ Oliver points out.

“What about green?” Tommy muses, ignoring him completely. “We could call it, I don’t know, Emeralds? Emerald City?”

Sara snickers. “Why don’t you fucking paint the floor gold while you’re at it?”

Tommy looks genuinely puzzled. “Why would I do that?”

Oliver lightly smacks the back of Tommy’s head. “It’s Wizard of Oz, idiot.”

“Oh. That’d be kinda a cool theme,” Tommy continues, undeterred. “Think of the drink names!”

Sara rolls her eyes. “You gonna serve opium too?”

“Huh?” Tommy leans into Oliver. “They get high? Why does this movie sound cooler than I remember?”

“The poppy fields,” Oliver reminds him.

“Oh, right.” Tommy takes another sip of his drink. “How come you remember it so well?”

Sara drains her glass and twists around, and when Oliver follows her gaze there’s Laurel, laughing at the bar as she flirts with the bartender, empty shot glasses lined up in front of her. She looks beautiful but that’s nothing new, dressed in a silky dark blue dress that shows off the sharp lines of her body, her hair tumbling down her back in big bouncy curls.

“It’s one of Laurel’s favorite movies,” Oliver mutters, and looks away from his ex-girl before she can spot him.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being another split chapter, so we’re picking up where we left off with Oliver’s POV. Some of you have expressed concern about Oliver and Sara (and Oliver and Laurel, which, fair) over the past few chapters so just a reminder, this is completely AU and the characters don’t have the same history that they did on the show. So far all that’s been explicitly stated about Oliver and Sara is that they were in the boat accident together but the circumstances around it haven’t been covered yet. You’re going to get more info on his relationships with both Lance girls in this chapter so hopefully that’ll clear some things up.

_I said, "Don't be a jerk, don't call me a taxi"_  
_Sitting in your sweatshirt, crying in the backseat_  
_Ooh_  
_I just wanna dance with you_  
-Lana Del Rey, Happiness Is A Butterfly

After a few hours and three rounds of Blue Skies later, the three of them decide to walk down the street for tacos. Oliver started a tab after their second round and tells Sara and Tommy to go on ahead without him while he closes it out. Sara looks around for Laurel to say goodbye but none of them see her so Sara shrugs, steals Tommy’s jacket and promises to order Oliver his favorite flank steak tacos. Tommy walks out with Sara, his peacoat draped around her shoulders, and Oliver goes over to the bar, waits until a group of sorority girls have collected their tequila shots to catch his server’s eye and gets his tab closed out. 

He tips her sixty bucks cash and the server gives him the kind of grateful, interested look he recognizes, the one that says she might like to show him how grateful she really is if he’s willing to stick around. But Oliver is with Felicity now, and his friends are waiting for him, and Laurel is still running loose somewhere around here so he gives the server a polite, neutral smile and goes down the back hallway past the other side of the bar to hit the men’s room before he walks over to meet Sara and Tommy.

He’s only in the bathroom for a minute so when he comes out after washing his hands he isn’t expecting to walk right past Laurel, who’s leaning against the wall with her eyes closed. He swears under his breath and pivots, backs up and stands in front of her. Up close she looks very thin and her dark eyeshadow is smudged under her eyes, and he’s overcome with apprehension. There’s a stillness in her he can’t remember ever seeing before, like she walked right out of her body and left it behind like an empty shell.

“Laurel?” Oliver asks tentatively.

Her eyelids flutter and she blinks watery eyes at him. “Ollie?”

“Hey, you doing okay?”

“I’m fine,” she slurs, her eyes blinking rapidly. “What’re you doing here? Wait, lemme guess. Sara asked you to come.”

“I think she felt abandoned,” he says gently.

She snorts. “Like my sister has any idea what that feels like.”

“Laurel.”

“What?”

“What are you doing?”

She gives him a terrifyingly sharp smile. “I’m having fun, Ollie, so if you’ll excuse me.”

She tries to push past him but her legs give out first and Oliver catches her by the waist. “Okay yeah, you’re done.”

“No,” Laurel whines. “I wanna dance, Ollie, let’s dance!”

“Laurel, c’mon, you’re wasted. Let me take you home, okay?”

Laurel scowls. “You’re no fun. You used to be fun.”

Oliver stares down at his ex-girlfriend and wonders what the hell happened to the bright, determined girl who kicked his ass in school and always held him to a higher standard than he holds himself, who liked to have fun, sure, but not like this.

“Being this drunk isn’t fun,” he mutters. “And you can’t dance, you can barely keep your eyes open.”

“Whatever,” she mumbles. “Don’t pretend like you care.”

“Christ,” he sighs. “I’m not negotiating with you on this, it’s me or I can call Sara and have her come back for you, your pick.”

“Sara left?” Laurel has the audacity to sound offended.

“You weren’t exactly paying any attention to her anyway, she and Tommy went to get tacos.”

“Sara left me for a taco?” 

“You left her first.”

“Stay out of it, Ollie.”

“I would if I could but I apparently can’t.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Kinda why I’m here in the first place,” he mutters. “Okay, last chance, me or Sara.”

“Is neither an option?”

His patience runs out. “You know what, sure it is. I’m out of here.”

He tries to walk away but Laurel clings to him, sliding her hands underneath his jacket to grip his sides with a surprisingly amount of strength given how inebriated she seems. “No, Ollie wait, don’t leave me!”

“I’m leaving,” he snaps. “You can come or not, up to you.”

“Okay,” she says in a small voice, staring down at her feet. “Okay, I’ll go.”

Oliver orders a car and when it gets close he and Laurel go outside to wait for it. She instantly starts shivering and he takes his jacket off, drapes it around her shoulders and texts Sara an update about Laurel. She responds with a selfie of her holding a bag of tacos, and a follow up text that gleefully reads _more for me!_

When their car comes Oliver opens the door to the backseat for Laurel and slides in after her. She scoots as far away from him as she can get, practically against the door, the hood of his jacket flipped over her hair. Oliver doesn’t realize until they’ve pulled out into traffic and headlights from passing cars flash across her face that Laurel’s started to cry, slow silent tears dripping down her face and turning her already smudged makeup into a total mess. 

He doesn’t know what to do, all her body language is screaming _leave me the fuck alone_ but she’s _crying_ and if there’s etiquette for how to handle your drunk weeping ex-girlfriend sitting with you in the backseat of a car with a stranger driving you, he doesn’t know it. He ends up just sitting there, watching her out of the corner of his eye, feeling impossibly out of his depth, braced for when the full meltdown inevitably hits.

She makes it all the way through the drive to her apartment without completely falling apart though, and gets out of the car without him needing to help her but when they get to the front entrance Oliver has to get her keys out of her bag to let them into the lobby because Laurel quits on him, huddled into his jacket as she cries and leans her body against the side of her building.

“C’mon.” He reaches for her and Laurel lets him drag her inside.

She lives on the third floor; they ride the elevator up in silence, Laurel’s head flopping dangerously to the side a few times, like she might pass out. He tries to help her out into the hallway when the doors slide open but she shrugs him off and stumbles over to her apartment door, lets her forehead bump against it and cries pitifully. He has to move her to the side so he can unlock the door and get it open; she kicks her heels off as she follows him inside, stumbling into the living room.

“Sit down, I’ll get you some water,” he orders.

“Just go,” she sniffs. “It’s not like you want to be here anyway.”

“You know what, you’re right, I could be doing a lot of things I’d enjoy a lot more than this right now but I’m not, so would it kill you to have a shred of gratitude?” he snaps.

Her eyes widen. “Gratitude? What exactly is it I’m supposed to be grateful for?”

“You’re drunk! Look at you, you can’t even stand up straight! What I was supposed to do, just leave you back at StarBar like this? Jesus Laurel, do you want me to apologize for making sure you got home alive? Really?”

“Oh sure, you did that because you’re just such a fucking saint, right? You know what Ollie, you can take your savior complex and shove it up your ass!”

“Fine! You wanna drink yourself into a black hole, be my guest!”

She covers her face in her hands. “Why do you hate me? What did I do to make you hate me?”

He stares at her, a sick feeling swirling in his stomach. “I don’t hate you.”

“Then why are you yelling at me?” she sobs.

“Because I’m worried about you!” he shouts. “You - you have everything, you’re gorgeous, you’re smart, and it’s pretty goddamn frustrating watching you throw that all away!”

“I'm not!” she wails. “Stop it, stop acting like I’m a pathetic drunk!”

“Look at yourself! You’re a fucking mess!”

Laurel crosses her arms over her eyes for a second, her mouth open in a silent cry that slices right through him, before shaking her head and dropping her arms, looking at him just like she did the first time he saw her, a few weeks after he came home, like he’d broken her heart.

“All I ever did was love you and you’re so mean to me.” She sniffs and wipes her eyes with the side of her hand. “I was a good girlfriend, Ollie. I love - I loved you so much.”

“I loved you too,” he says automatically, his head spinning, because he has no idea where she’s going with this.

“But you still cheated on me that weekend,” she cries. “You left me for her.”

Oliver stares at her. “What?”

“I’m not stupid Ollie, I know what you and Sara were doing.”

“We - we took the boat out,” he says. “I know it was stupid but it wasn’t about you, we were just blowing off steam” -

“Cheating on me with my sister is ‘just blowing off steam’?!”

 _What the fuck_. “Sara told you I cheated on you? With _her?_ ”

“She didn’t have to! I’m not stupid, why else would the two of you take the boat out and not tell anyone?!”

Oliver feels like he’s been hit over the head with a brick. “Laurel, we never did that” -

“Bullshit!”

“Laurel, I’m serious! Yeah okay, we got drunk and maybe we were pushing the boundary a little bit I didn’t sleep with her!”

“Do you honestly expect me to believe that? For anyone to believe that? You and Sara left on the boat, without even telling anyone, and you expect me to think you guys weren’t hooking up?”

“Sara and I - yeah, it wasn’t cool that we snuck off like that, I know that I hurt you and if I could take it back I would but I didn’t _cheat_ on you.”

She gives him a look that makes him feel cold all over. “Get out.”

“Laurel” -

“Get out!” Laurel shrieks.

When he doesn’t move she reaches wildly for the knickknacks sitting on her side table and starts throwing them. Oliver stumbles back, ducking when a notepad sails over his head, pens and the tv remote and her American National Government textbook crash to the floor.

“Laurel, I’m sorry” -

“Leave!” she screams, and crumples over. “Just leave me alone!”

“Okay,” he agrees, mostly because he’s never been scared of her before and he doesn’t know how to handle it, and snatches his jacket up from where she’s tossed it across the room.

He walks backwards out of her apartment, listening to her continue to cry as he leaves and locks her door from inside before shutting it, and tests the knob from the outside to make sure it’s locked. He stumbles down the hallway, gets into the elevator and rides down to the lobby in shock.

When Laurel broke up with him she had the kindness to wait until he’d been home for a few weeks, had adjusted a little. She’d been so matter-of-fact about it, like she’d been thinking about it for awhile. Oliver had imagined her sitting in her apartment, building her case, writing up arguments that she hadn’t even needed, because when she informed him she’d decided they weren’t going to work out and it was time for them to both accept that, he’d taken it without argument. He’d put her through hell, she thought he’d _died_.

She never told him she was breaking up with him because she thought he was a cheater.

Is that what everyone else thinks too?

He goes outside and inhales hard, cold air making him shiver as he zips up his jacket. He pulls out his phone, his stomach dropping when he sees he has a few unread texts from Felicity. He swipes his screen to read them, and to his relief they’re run of the mill, checking-in kind of texts, nothing major, so he taps the icon of her face and hits _call._

“Hey,” she answers cheerfully when the line connects. “Are you still out with Tommy?”

“Uh, no, I, uh.. how’s the studying going?”

“Awful,” she moans. “I think it’s gonna be an all-nighter.”

Oliver glances at the Chinese restaurant down the block from Laurel’s apartment. “Did you get a dinner break?”

“That depends if you consider a bag of sour skittles dinner.”

“I can swing by and drop food off for you guys,” he offers.

“Oh, that’s really nice but you don’t have to do that.”

“I don’t mind. I was gonna get food with Sara and Tommy but I got, um, held up, so I was gonna pick something up anyway.”

“Okay,” she says. “I mean, only if you don’t mind.”

“It’s really not a big deal. You guys still at Caitlin’s?”

“Yeah, um, Barry’s here too, he and Iris are working on papers for their Criminology class.”

“I thought Iris was majoring in journalism,” he says as he ducks his head against the wind and begins to walk down the block.

“And criminal justice.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, you don’t really know my friends that well,” she says softly.

“Hey, I just got inside,” he lies, because being reminded of another failure right now is too much for him to deal with. “I’ll text you when I’m on my way?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Sure.” He hangs up and rushes down the block, yanks on the glass door of the restaurant and lets out a sigh of relief at the central heating as he walks over to the take out counter.

He orders an assortment of food, figuring people can take or leave what they want that way: egg rolls, lettuce wraps, fried wontons, a few different kinds of lo mein, fried rice, sweet and sour chicken, Mongolian beef, egg drop soup. He orders a car, glad he thought to save Caitlin’s address in his phone after he dropped her off last week, and it comes right after his food is ready. He carries the takeout bag outside and texts Felicity when he’s in the car, and she forwards him the code to get buzzed into Caitlin’s building. 

When he gets there he taps the code into the box by the door and after a few seconds it buzzes as the doors unlock and he lets himself inside. His phone dings with a follow up text from Felicity directing to the fourth floor, he takes the elevator up and when he gets out Felicity is waiting for him in the hallway in skinny jeans and her old UNLV sweatshirt, her hair falling out of her ponytail.

“Hey,” she says, sounding exhausted but happy to see him. “Oh my god, that smells amazing, you’re the best for doing this.”

She goes up on her tiptoes to kiss him and Oliver wants to melt into her, lose himself in the one person who never seems to judge him or find him lacking. “Maybe I just wanted an excuse to see you.”

Felicity beams and takes his free hand in hers. “C’mon, they’re down the hall.”

He squeezes his hand around hers. “Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“I missed you.”

She looks up at him, forehead furrowed as she stops in front of a door to an apartment that’s slightly cracked. “I missed you too. Are you okay? You look a little… something.”

“Yeah, I’ll tell you later.”

“Okay.” She shoots him a worried look and pushes the door open.

Oliver follows her in; Caitlin and Cisco are sitting on the floor of the living room hunched over a laptop, and through the archway that leads to the kitchen he can see Barry and Iris working at a round table.

“Hey everyone, food break!” Felicity calls out.

Cisco and Caitlin both cheer and get up from the floor to follow him and Felicity into the kitchen, where Barry and Iris are clearing off space on the counter for Oliver to set the takeout bag down.

“Hey man, this is so nice of you.” Barry pulls him into a shoulder clasp/hug and Oliver lets him, surrendering to Barry’s affection to make Felicity happy.

“Oliver, you are officially my favorite person ever.” Caitlin declares, opening a cabinet and taking down a stack of plates.

“Hey, you said I was your favorite person like three hours ago!” Cisco complains.

“But he bought us food.” Caitlin helps Oliver unpack the takeout and sets it up buffet style on the counter. 

“It’s not a big deal.” Oliver gets out of her way so Caitlin can dig out cutlery. “I was right by there anyway.”

Felicity tilts her head. “Isn’t Laurel’s apartment on the same street?”

“Yeah.” He leans back against the counter and doesn’t elaborate.

Oliver stays long enough to eat a few egg rolls and share some beef lo mein with Felicity before deciding to head out and let them get back to work. Felicity walks him to the door, glancing back to make sure everyone is still in the kitchen before giving him a quick kiss as he leans against the doorframe.

“You sure you’re okay?” she whispers.

“I went to StarBar with Tommy, and Sara and Laurel were there,” he says in a low voice, so her friends can’t hear. “Laurel was wasted, I ended up dropping her off at home, I didn’t… I wouldn’t have felt right about leaving her there alone.”

“Oh. Was that… I know what she can be like, when she’s, you know…”

“Does everyone think I cheated on her with Sara?” he blurts out.

Felicity’s eyes go wide behind her glasses. “Um… I mean, you can’t really be surprised that people might’ve assumed that’s why you guys took the boat out.”

“Then why didn’t anyone say something to me?” he hisses.

“I think we all assumed Laurel did, and honestly Oliver, we were just happy that you guys made it home, I don’t think anyone wanted to punish you guys after what happened, you know?”

“Sounds like everyone made a lot of assumptions without bothering to check the facts,” he says bitterly.

“Okay,” she murmurs. “So what are the facts?”

“We just wanted to have some fun,” he mumbles. “We were never - yeah, I know Sara and I used to flirt sometimes, like, as a joke, but we never, it wasn’t like that, we were _friends_ , we’ve always been friends, I didn’t - I didn't know everyone thought we were a thing and I, I don’t expect you to believe me, it’s not like I’ve been a monk or anything but Laurel was crying and she said all these things like how no one would believe me and” -

“I believe you,” she says quietly. “It’s okay.”

He stares at her. “You do?”

“You don’t have a reason to lie about it to me, right? It was months ago. I’d - I would understand” -

“We didn’t,” he insists. “We never slept together.”

“Okay,” she says gently. “I believe you. Is that what was bothering you?”

He swallows through the tightness in his chest. “We kinda got in a fight about it.”

“I’m sorry. Are you sure you want to go? No one’ll care if you hang out while we work.”

“Nah, I’d just be in the way. Let me know when you get back home?”

“Sure,” she agrees. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” he assures her. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” She sneaks one more kiss and smiles as she gently shuts the door behind her.

He goes back outside and thinks about going home and crashing, try to pretend tonight never happened, but he pulls out his phone and texts Sara instead: _you home?_

She texts back _yeah_ right away, so he asks if he can come over, and she texts him back the thumbs up emoji. He orders his third car of the night and takes it to Sara’s, texts her when he’s outside the front door and she buzzes him in. Oliver goes into the building and takes the elevator up, wondering if this is a mistake but it’s too late to take it back anyway. She’s waiting for him, leaning in her doorway when he comes out of the elevator.

“Hey.” Sara moves to the side to let him in and locks the door behind them. “Do you want your tacos? I saved a few for you.”

“Did you know that Laurel thought I cheated on her with you that weekend on the boat?” he asks without preamble.

She just blinks at him and starts to head down the hall to the kitchen. “I need a drink, do you want a drink?”

Sara.” He reaches for her wrist but she twists her arm away before he can get a real grasp on it and fucking _backhands_ him.

“Jesus!” he shouts, putting one hand to his cheek in shock. “What the fuck, Sara?”

“Don’t fucking grab me like that,” she says in a hard voice.

“Overreact much?” he snaps. “Fuck, that hurt.”

“Don’t be a baby.” She walks to the kitchen, giving him no choice but to follow. “And yes, I’m aware of what my sister thinks happens. You weren’t?”

“Not until tonight.”

“Wait, I thought that’s why you broke up.”

“No, she dumped me because she realized I, quote, was never going to grow up.”

“Never occurred to you that might’ve been code for ‘messing around with my sister’?”

He watches her, dumbfounded, as she opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of Stoli. “No. It never occurred to you to correct her?”

“Ollie, get off your high horse.” She gets a shot glass from a shelf above the sink, pours out a shot of vodka and tosses it back. “It’s not like we were totally innocent.”

“What are you talking about? We didn’t do anything!”

Sara wipes her lips with the back of her hand. “C’mon Ollie, we may not have slept together but we knew what we were doing, do you really think we wouldn’t have gone that far if the boat hadn’t sunk? ”

“Sara, you don’t know that.”

“What I know is, you and I thought it was totally okay to take your dad's boat out for a joyride without telling anyone, drank a bottle of champagne and were going to sleep in the same bed when the boat went down. Sure, you didn’t officially cheat, but you’re resting on a technicality there.”

“Sara,” he says helplessly. “What are you talking about? C’mon I know we” -

“Wanted to have fun?” Sara slinks over time him and gives him a smile that looks cruel, an echo of the smile Laurel gave him back at StarBar. “Oh yeah, I remember. I remember that I didn’t care about how Laurel would feel when she found out you asked me to come with you and I said yes. I remember getting champagne all over our shirts so we took them off. I remember how good I felt that my sister’s boyfriend wanted to be around me without her, like I’d finally beaten her in something.”

“It’s not like we slept together,” he mutters, stuck on the point even though it’s clear she thinks it’s irrelevant.

“That’s not the point. We put ourselves in a position where it would’ve been too easy to be tempted, Laurel has a right to be mad about it. Also, emotional cheating. Look it up, it’s a thing.”

“Jesus Sara, it’s not like we were having an affair!”

“It was still wrong.”

“I know, but… am I just supposed to be cool with everyone thinking I cheated on Laurel with her sister?”

Sara goes back to the counter and takes another shot. “Don’t you get it? We aren’t the good guys, Ollie. We did a bad thing.”

“We made a stupid mistake!”

“We hurt her.” Sara’s blue eyes are so dark they look almost black. “We hurt people, Ollie. We don’t get to act self-righteous.”

Suddenly he understands what conversation they’re actually having. “Sara, that wasn’t your fault” -

She slams the shot glass down on the counter. “I think you should go.” 

“Sara.”

“Please.” She hunches over the counter, her hands shaking as she puts the shot glass in the sink. “I can’t talk about this. You promised me we would never talk about this unless I wanted to.”

“Okay,” he agrees softly, because he did, on the plane ride home, the two of them bundled up in airline blankets even though it was summer, because they couldn’t stop shaking. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you” -

“I know.” She lifts her head to give him a sad smile. “You never do.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter features a character having a panic attack in the first section, if you’d prefer to skip right to the fun stuff just scroll down until you hit the asterisk and you’ll be good to read from there on.

_I cry on his shoulder 'cause life is hard_  
 _The waves came in over my head_  
-Lana Del Rey, How To Disappear

“So like, scale of one to ten, how much do your friends think we’re dating?” Oliver asks her on Monday night, while he’s digging through the pantry in the kitchen looking for a bag of chips to eat with the guacamole he wants to make.

Tommy’s at a night class so she and Oliver are hanging out in the living room, they both caught up on their respective readings for the next day and are taking a well earned snack break.

Felicity stretches out on the couch and tugs on the hem of her plum colored sweater dress before it rides all the way up her thighs. “Uh, if we’re talking Cisco and Barry I’d say it’s like a two, Iris is maybe a five, but Caitlin’s like an eight.” 

“Is that, like, an issue?” he asks hesitantly, his back turned to her.

“No one’s giving me a hard time, if that’s what you mean.” 

Oliver emerges with a bag of lime flavored tortilla chips and sets them down on the island next to a large ceramic bowl and a few avocados. “Okay.”

Felicity watches him from across the room as he rolls up his sleeves to wash his hands, thinking about what he would say if she told him she wanted to tell her friends about them. She thinks he’d understand if she wanted to, she hopes he would anyway. It was her idea to keep them a secret but she hadn’t really thought about how she might _want_ to talk about Oliver with her friends someday, be able to brag and giggle about the cute little things he does that no one knows about but her.

The thing is though, she still doesn’t want anyone to know about them, not really. What they’re doing is between them, if other people find out it could completely change their dynamic and that’s not including the absolute shitstorm that would come down on them if Laurel found out.

Felicity doesn’t feel guilty about what she’s doing with Oliver, not exactly, even if she knows deep down that she should. Maybe she would if Laurel was her biological sister or if they were closer, like Felicity is with Sara, who isn’t exactly Felicity’s best friend but when push comes to shove she’s always had Felicity’s back. 

But Laurel… well, it’s not like she was cruel to Felicity growing up, she didn’t torture her or make her life a living hell. It was more like she treated her like she didn’t exist at all.

Felicity already had the sneaking suspicion after her dad left that maybe there was something wrong with her, something that makes people not want her, and the way Laurel treated her only strengthened that belief. She’d eat dinner across the kitchen table from her and act like Felicity was invisible, swap her Halloween candy with Sara and use Felicity’s peanut allergy as an excuse not to share. She acted like Felicity was a nuisance not worth her time, like she was a pet Laurel hadn’t asked for, something annoying and easily resented. She never claimed Felicity as her sister, would roll her eyes and mutter _stepdaughter_ whenever they were out as a family and people assumed Felicity was Quentin’s youngest girl.

So if Laurel ever finds out about Felicity and Oliver, whatever meager amount of affection she might secretly have in her heart for Felicity is sure to vanish.

Not that it matters. Laurel will never know.

She and Oliver are temporary, as much as Felicity would like to pretend that they have a real romantic future she can’t delude herself like that. Oliver’s going to graduate soon, he’s going to remember that he’s a grown man who’s playing on an entirely different level than her, he’s going to remember that he can have anyone he wants. 

Everyone he wants. 

The thought makes her go cold all over, imagining Oliver with someone else. As much as she knows it’s probably what will happen eventually, the idea of this ending, of him no longer wanting this makes her chest hurt.

What if Oliver breaks up with her when he graduates? What if he goes away on spring break with Tommy like he usually does and hooks up with someone else? What if he decides he’s bored of her?

A million other questions swirl around in her brain, until her mind is racing with every terrible way her and Oliver will end, her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she leans forward to drop her head into her hands. She doesn’t know why she’s gotten fixated on it, the idea of Oliver leaving her, but now that’s on her mind it’s like she can’t stop thinking about it and she curls into herself as a wave of fear sweeps over her.

How is she ever supposed to survive without Oliver? What is she going to do if he decides he doesn’t want her anymore? How could she ever risk the most important relationship in her life like this, like some stupid teenager who’s a slave to their hormones?

“Felicity? Felicity, what’s wrong?”

When she lifts her head Oliver is standing right in front of her, a worried expression on her face. She tries to say something but her throat closes up and she blinks back tears as she looks up at his beautiful face, wondering what the hell is wrong with her. Her head feels like it’s buzzing, all she can really focus on is the pound of her heart, the sharp pain in her chest, and oh god, is she dying? Is she having a heart attack?

What’s happening to her?

“Felicity.” Oliver kneels down in front of her, looking very concerned. “Talk to me, what’s going on?”

She shakes her head frantically, she can’t talk, she isn’t sure she can even _breathe_ and Oliver’s eyes widen, his hands spreading out over her legs. “Felicity, come on, I’m right here, tell me what’s happening!”

Tears spill down her cheeks as she lets out a tight, sharp wheeze, her hands clutching Oliver’s wrists as she shakes her head again because _she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe, she can’t breathe_ -

“Felicity!” He gets one knee up on the couch and pulls his arms out of her grasp so he can cup her face in his hands. “Breathe, you’re okay, c’mon, breathe.”

“Can’t,” she chokes out.

“Yes, you can.” His palms are warm and firm against her cheeks. “Come on, deep breaths.”

She tries, she really does, but when she opens her mouth all that comes out is a strangled gasp and she immediately bursts into tears. In three seconds flat Oliver’s sitting on the couch and has her into his lap so she’s sitting sideways with his arms wrapped around her, and Felicity buries her face into his shoulder.

“Felicity,” he murmurs, sounding kind of scared, one of his hands coming up to stroke her hair. “What? What is it?”

“I don’t know,” she sobs, clutching his sweatshirt in her hands. 

“Okay, okay.” He kisses the top of her head. “It’s okay.”

Oliver holds her tightly and makes little shushing sounds, and Felicity cries like a freaking baby. She can’t control it, sobs tear out of her so hard it hurts but he just murmurs nonsense into the crown of her head and lets her cry and it’s such a relief to not have to be in control or pretend that she’s okay, to be held in strong arms as she completely falls apart.

She cries for a long time and Oliver just lets her, until her sobs have wound down to soft little whimpers, an occasional tremor running through her body. He runs his hands through her hair, rubs her back, grabs a tissue from the box on the end table and hands it to her so she can blow her nose.

“What was that?” he asks softly.

She sniffs, her face still buried in the safety of his sweatshirt. “I dunno. “

“Felicity.”

The strain in his voice makes her flinch. “I’m sorry.”

Oliver sighs and cups the back of her neck, his thumb teasing under her jawline and flicking away a stray tear. “There’s nothing to be sorry for, you just… you scared me a little there.”

She nods into his chest, because she scared herself too. “I don’t know what happened, I was just…”

“What?”

“Oliver?” She lifts her head tentatively, relieved when she’s met with nothing but calm blue eyes. 

He gives her a crooked smile and runs his thumbs under her eyes, fingertips coming away smudged with mascara. “Yeah?”

“We’ll always be friends, right?” she asks tremulously.

“Hey.” Oliver kisses the tip of her nose, his thumbs still resting over the tops of her cheekbones. “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

“Okay,” she sighs, the knot of tension in her chest relaxing just a little. 

“C’mere.” Oliver hugs her and Felicity rests her cheek against his and lets out a shaky exhale. “Felicity, you can always talk to me about this stuff, you know that, right?”

“Mhmm.”

“Okay.” He bumps his cheek gently against hers. “Do you want to watch a movie or something? Or talk more?”

“Movie,” she decides quickly. 

She doesn’t want to get into it with him, not now, when just the memory of the bad thoughts she was having only a few minutes ago make her shake with fear. She wants to stop thinking about things that haven’t even happened yet, she needs to turn her brain off, she needs a break.

She needs Oliver to make it okay.

“Okay,” he says gently. “Whatever you want.”

*

An hour and a half later Felicity’s heart is still racing but it’s for another reason entirely.

She’s sitting on Oliver’s bed with him, her back against his chest, his legs bracketing hers, and there’s a plaid fleece blanket draped over them. They’re watching a movie, the first of some action trilogy he picked out for them because she was so emotionally fried she couldn’t care less about what they watch as long as it’s distracting. And it is, she guesses, but not nearly as distracting as the reason her heart is racing:

Oliver’s hand is on her leg.

High up on the inside of her right thigh, under the hem of her sweater dress, the heat from his palm sinking into her bare skin and flooding through her body. He isn’t doing anything with it but it’s curved around the muscle and every so often he’ll rub his fingertips back and forth a little in a way that sends tremors fluttering up to her core.

She doesn’t know what to do, she’s spent the past hour that they’ve been sitting like that in quiet agony, desperate for his hand to slide a little higher, and then higher still, but he doesn’t move it at all. He’s probably waiting for her to ask for it, to give him some kind of verbal confirmation that it’s what she wants.

Maybe he thinks after her total meltdown earlier she isn’t in the mood but she thinks she might do a lot of things right now for that kind of distraction, to forget about her fears over losing Oliver one day by getting as physically close to him as she can now, to take what she can get while she can get it, to get out of her thoughts and into the kind of head space only he can get her to, where the only thing she’s capable of thinking about is how good he feels inside her.

Or maybe she’s completely avoiding her problems with sex. Whatever. She’s nineteen, when else is she going to be able to have no strings attached sex with the most gorgeous man in the world, a man who makes her feel special, safe, _alive_ in a way that almost feels addicting?

She arches her back a little, idly searching for some kind of relief. Behind her Oliver makes a little noise, and she lets her head rest back on his shoulder. She isn’t paying any attention to the movie, all she can think about is his hand on her leg, how good it would feel somewhere else, and she swallows back a whimper. She flexes her feet, feeling the ache in her muscles, that heaviness deep in her belly. She wiggles back against him a little and he huffs out a breath against the back of her neck.

“Felicity,” he says tightly.

“Mm?” She has no idea why she feels so nervous, there’s something about not knowing where his head is at exactly that keeps her on her toes.

“What’re you doing?”

“Nothing,” she answers innocently.

He tightens his grip on her leg, not a lot, but enough for her to suck in a breath. “Is that right?”

His voice is low and amused and so sexy it makes her want to cry again. “Your hand is on my leg,” she points out.

“Would you like me to move it?”

“I don’t know,” she replies, feeling tense all over. “Depends where you’re moving it.”

“I could move it lower,” he murmurs, and slides his hand down towards her knee.

Slowly, heart hammering, she shakes her head, and Oliver lets out a chuckle. “No?”

“No,” she whispers.

“No? Okay.” He taps his fingers against her thigh. “Higher?”

“Yes,” she chokes out in relief.

He moves his hand back to where it was and she almost sobs in disappointment. “Here?”

Felicity breaks. “Higher,” she pleads. “Please.”

“Of course. Since you asked so nicely.” He moves his hand up to the top of her thigh and starts to knead gently at her quad, the tendons on the inside of her thigh.

She inhales sharply and lets her eyelids flutter shut. “Oliver.”

He kisses the side of her head and wraps his left arm around her so she’s held against his chest as his right hand runs against the edge of her underwear. “Hmm?”

“Don’t stop,” she breathes.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Are you... are you okay?”

“I will be as long as you don’t stop,” she grits out. 

He finally cups her through her underwear, glorious, glorious pressure making her gasp. “Why do you sound annoyed?” 

“Because you’ve been teasing me for like an hour?”

He rubs the heel of his hand against her like an apology. “You could’ve said something.”

“Well apparently I just really love to torture myself.”

“You need me to make you feel better?” he jokes.

“Yes,” she pouts, and tips her face up for a kiss.

He kisses her gently but when he pulls away gives her a devilish grin that makes her stomach drop. “You got it.”

She reaches down to help him roll down her underwear, the skirt of her dress up around her waist. Her knees fall open to the sides, still under the warmth of the blanket, and when Oliver’s fingers come back to her she’s so turned on she cries out, reaching up to grip the arm that’s wrapped around her.

He rubs her with gentle pressure but she’s been waiting for so long that she’s already halfway there, her hips urging him to move faster. She clutches at him, her thighs shaking, pressure building in her pelvis as she gasps for breath. She arches back against him and Oliver groans, speeding up his fingers. She’s so close already, eyes shut so she can focus, heat rushing up her spine as it builds and builds.

“Don’t stop,” she pleads, hips moving to his rhythm. “Please, please, please, please” -

“Shh, I won’t, I won’t,” Oliver kisses her temple. 

“I need, I need, I need,” she cries out dumbly, unable to string more than two words together. “Please, I need, I, _holy shit!_ ”

Oliver reaches down and pushes his fingers inside her, his thumb replacing them, and Felicity sobs, clenching down hard around him as she comes. He curls his fingers inside her as he flicks his thumb and her whole body contracts at his touch.

“Fuck me,” she begs. “Please, please, Oliver.”

“Come against first,” he pants.

She cries out, feeling delirious and overwhelmingly _grateful_ , that Oliver understands her, what she needs, that all she has to do is ask and it is given.

“C’mon,” he says hotly. “Tell me what you need.”

“You,” she groans, hips rolling frantically. “You - inside me - fucking me - make me feel so good.”

“That’s right,” he says in a gravelly voice. “Gonna fuck you so good.”

She’s burning up, working her body against him in single minded desperation. “Yes,” she gasps. “Yes, I’m - Oliver!”

Another sob tears out of her as she comes again, moaning when he pulls his fingers out and sits up a little more, leaning away to pull his shirt off. Felicity kicks the blanket off her and yanks her dress up over her head and tosses it on the floor, leaving her in a black lace bra and nothing else. He spins her around so she’s facing him and gets up his knees to kick off his sweatpants and boxers before settling back against the pillows and settling her into his lap.

“Hey,” he murmurs, and wraps one hand around the back of her neck. “You doing okay?”

Her whole body goes soft, Felicity curls forward and rests her forehead against his as she braces her hands behind him on the headboard. “Thank you.”

“For what?” he asks curiously.

She rolls her hips where he’s hard against her and shivers. “For being you.”

He runs his hand down her back, all the way to her ass. “Felicity.”

“I mean it, you’re… thank you for being nice, before. About everything.”

He settles his hands around her hips, encouraging her to grind against him. “I just want you to feel good.”

“I do,” she whispers. “I’m with you.”

He kisses her, slow and deep, so intense that she doesn’t realize at first that he’s reached down to grip himself so he can help guide himself into her. She slides down and gasps at the pressure of him inside her, crying out when it sends heat rolling up her spine.

“You feel so good,” she breathes out. “You always feel so good.”

Oliver gives her a heavy lidded grin, like he’s drunk on her. “You too.”

She rocks into him and cries out in surprise at just how good it already feels. “Oh god!”

He gives her a playful smirk. “Already?”

She rolls her hips again and clenches around him. “I think so,” she whimpers.

His eyes go dark as he pushes into her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she exhales sharply, a shudder running through her. “Oh god yeah, just keep doing that.”

“Felicity,” he exhales, sounding awestruck, like it’s just as amazing for him as it is for her. 

She works her hips in a fast rhythm, following her body’s lead, grinding down against him every time he rocks up inside her, pressure building in her until it’s unbearable.

“Oliver,” she wails, her arms winding around his neck. She bounces roughly in his lap, hot tears burning in her eyes as she really starts to hit that edge, slamming her weight against him. “Please! Please!”

“Yeah,” he grunts. 

She feels like she’s going to break out of her skin, she lets him pick her up by the hips and drop her down on him over and over, hips smacking together and sending waves of pressure rolling through her as she cries out. “Oh god! Oliver! Oliver! 

“Fuck,” he hisses, and lightly smacks her ass, not enough to hurt but enough to make ripples of heat spread through her.

“Hold me!” she pleads. “Oh, oh, oh, please, please,”-

His lips press against hers as his arms come around her and Felicity comes in sobs, burying her head in his shoulder as she breaks apart.

She knows she can’t have him forever but right now, in the absolute bliss of having him inside her, his arms around her, his voice whispering beautiful things to her, she can’t bring herself to care.


	11. Chapter 11

_But sometimes girls just want to have fun_  
-Lana Del Rey, Bartender

Oliver doesn’t see Felicity for the next couple of days, midterms are coming up soon and both have them have been busy studying. They stay in almost constant contact though, texting, sending selfies, talking on the phone before bed. She calls him on Thursday afternoon when he’s gotten back from his last class and taken a run, showered and changed into sweats.

“Hey,” he answers. “How’s the study session going?”

“Terrible,” she moans. “Why did I register for art history again?”

“Because you needed the gen-ed credit.”

“Ugh, my eyes hurt,” Felicity complains. “I’ve been staring at slides of medieval paintings for two hours straight.”

“So take a break.”

“Well, that’s actually why I was calling.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I have a little time until my next class and I’m not that far from you, so…”

Oliver smiles to himself, he thinks he has an idea of why she’s really calling. “Do you want to come over?”

“I can’t stay that long.”

“That’s okay.”

“Okay! Um, can you buzz me in in like a minute? I’m like a block from the penthouse actually, I’ll text you when I’m outside?”

“Okay, see you in a minute.”

He hangs up and doesn’t bother putting on a shirt, he gives a halfhearted effort at making his bed and goes into the living room to wait for Felicity, grateful Tommy’s at a three hour business seminar. He buzzes Felicity in when she texts him and she comes out of the elevator a minute later wearing a pair of skinny jeans and a cropped pink sweater, her backpack dangling over one shoulder.

“Hi,” she says cheerfully when she meets him at the door.

“Hey, you.” He pulls her inside and kisses her, shutting the door with his foot.

“Mm, hi.” She kisses him back and smiles. “Tommy home?”

He grins. “Nope.”

He leads her to his room, her hand cold from outside. “How much time do you have?” he asks her.

“About an hour, maybe a little more if you’d be willing to give me a ride to class later?”

He slips his hands up under the hem of her sweater. “Of course.”

She sets her backpack on the floor. “So, what do you want to do?”

He leans in and kisses her, pinning her back against the wall. She sighs against his mouth and reaches down to squeeze his wrists. “Let me just go to the bathroom?”

“Of course.” He steps to the side and Felicity flashes him a smile as she goes into his bathroom and shuts the door. He goes over to his nightstand and plugs his phone into the speakers, pulls up a playlist and starts the music. He walks back over to the oversized armchair in the corner of his room by the window and sits down, half hard in his sweatpants already, excitement making his pulse race.

When Felicity comes out of his bathroom a few minutes later she’s naked from the waist down. Oliver’s mouth goes dry, fingers itching to grab her. “You’re ready to go, huh?”

“I’m saving time.” She walks slowly across the room to him, the muscles in her legs flexing.

“Come sit with me.” He pats his lap and she skips over to him, climbs up onto the chair and straddles him.

“Hi,” she breathes.

He cups the backs of her bare thighs. “Hi.”

He leans in to kiss her as he slides his hands up to her ass. She sinks into him as he cups her glutes, lips soft and pliable. He sucks on her bottom lip as she squirms a little, until she’s lined up with him. Oliver groans in the back of his throat at the weight of her, his hands sliding up to hold her by the waist. He moves his lips to her jaw, plants little kisses against her throat as Felicity lets out little breathy sighs and starts to roll her hips.

“I missed this,” she murmurs, her hands linking behind his neck. “I know it’s only been a few days but it feels like forever.”

Oliver smiles against the side of her neck. “I know. Me too.”

She pushes her hips into him and reaches up to take off her glasses, stretching a little to place them on the windowsill. “I wish I didn’t have to go back to class.”

He strokes her ribs and flicks his tongue against the shell of her ear. “You wanna do something when you’re done with class tomorrow?”

She presses her lips together and nods. “Mhmm.”

He slides his hands down to her hips and moves his pelvis in rhythm with hers. “Tommy’s going to Palm Springs for that business club trip in the morning.”

“Oh,” she exhales sharply. “Okay.”

“We’ll be able to take our time.” He squeezes her thighs, her sides, dips his thumbs into the creases of her hips. “He’ll be gone all weekend.”

“That’ll… be nice.” She drops her head to his shoulder, grinding her hips against him. 

He spreads his hands low on her back, pushing up into her as she moves against him. He sucks a mark onto her throat, listening to the way her breathing picks up, her body moving restlessly against him.

“Let me take my sweatpants off,” he murmurs.

She goes up on her knees so he can push his sweatpants down past his thighs and slips his right hand between her legs as she settles back in his lap, dragging two fingers through wet folds. 

“ _Oh,_ ” she sighs as he starts to stroke her, firm and slow. “You always feel so good.”

It’s not like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, god knows he’s had plenty of practice, but it still makes him warm with pride, that he can do this to her, for her. He takes it seriously, that he has more experience than her. He wants to open her up to what’s possible, show her how incredible it can be to share your body with another person, how good she can feel.

Maybe if he can get her to trust him with her body, one day she’ll trust him with her heart.

Felicity curls forward, head bowed as she rolls her hips against his fingers. She starts to pant, soft little noises that make him crazy. He slides his finger down, pushes two of them inside her and she groans, rocking forward to grind into the heel of his hand. She’s so hot inside, wet and tight, and he has to grit his teeth, reminding himself that he needs to be patient, gentle, because this is Felicity, this is someone precious and breakable, someone’s who’s trusting him and he can’t let himself fuck that up.

She starts to moan, working her hips as Oliver curves his fingers inside her. Her pants turn to gasps, her thighs starting to shake as she grinds against his hand. He loves this moment, right before she comes, when she starts getting frantic, desperate for it. She’s normally so self contained, in control, but here, with her on top of him, half naked, she can let go and let him make her feel good, let him be the one to see her like this, take her to that place of physical bliss.

“Oh _god,_ ” she groans. “ _Ohhhhh, ohhhh, oh!”_

She goes rigid, her head falling forward onto his chest as she comes. He works her down slowly, pulls his fingers out and wipes them on his boxer briefs. Felicity lifts her head and giggles, presses a kiss to his mouth. He kisses her back and she squeals as he scoops her up, carries her over to the bed and tosses her onto the mattress. She scoots back as he kick off his boxers briefs and crawls over to her, grabs her by the hips and flips her over onto her stomach.

“How much time do we have left?” She lifts her hips up, back arching, stretched out on her forearms.

Oliver kisses the base of her spine and reaches down to push himself inside of her. “Enough to make you come again.”

*

Oliver’s thinking of what he can cook for him and Felicity for dinner the next day when his phone buzzes on the kitchen island. He abandons his search for pasta to answer it, wondering why Sara’s calling him in the middle of the afternoon.

She starts talking before he can even say hello. “We are so screwed!”

“What?

“Has your mom called you yet?”

His stomach drops. “No. Why, what happened?”

“Apparently we have a family dinner tonight.”

“No way.”

“Yes way. I’m as thrilled as you are.”

Family dinners are a thing they used to do as kids, usually at a restaurant, on Friday nights, their parents would all drink wine and Oliver would complain loudly about being stuck hanging out with a bunch of girls. They still do them now every once in awhile but they’re harder to schedule, the last time they had a family dinner was before winter break.

“Seriously?” he complains.

“Oh, yes. It’s _mandatory._ ”

“Since when?” he asks.

“I don’t know!” she wails. “Apparently someone thought we were overdue for one.”

“Shit,” he mutters.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

His phone buzzes in his ear, when he pulls it away he has a text from his mother. “Oh great, I’ve been summoned.”

“”We should’ve stayed in China,” Sara mutters, and hangs up.

The text from his mother is direct and to the point: dinner, mandatory, an Italian restaurant downtown, a time. He sighs to himself and goes into his room to change.

*

Oliver pulls up to Sara and Felicity’s apartment a little before seven, Sara sent him a text to inform that she’s meeting everyone right from class and asked him to pick up Felicity so she didn’t have to take the bus or pay for a car. He texts Felicity that he’s outside and a few minutes later she some out dressed nicely if a bit conservatively: a high necked long sleeved navy dress with a skirt that flares around her knees, black tights and ankles boots, and a little bag slung over one shoulder.

“Hey,” she says morosely as she gets into the car.

“You look nice,” he offers, watching her buckle her seatbelt and lean back in her seat.

“How much do you want to bet my mom’ll disagree with you?”

“Hey.” He leans across the car and cups the back of her neck. “I’m sorry we couldn’t hang out tonight.”

“Me too.” She tilts her chin up to give him a kiss. “I wish we could blow it off but my mom would kill me.”

Oliver turns his signal on and pulls out onto the street. “Same.”

“You don’t like… think that they know, right?”

“About us?”

“Yeah.”

“How would they know?”

“I don’t know!”

“Hey, Felicity, it’s fine. No one knows anything.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know, you’re right.” She fluffs up her hair with her fingers and looks out the window.

They drive across Starling City without talking, the radio playing softly in the background as Oliver guides them through traffic to the restaurant. He manages to find an open spot right down the street from it and parallel parks with one arm slung around the back of the passenger seat. He turns off the engine and they both take off their seatbelts but neither of them get out of the car. It’s dark out, the sidewalk he parked next to is lined with trees, the streetlight at the end of the block illuminating the restaurant sign.

“One minute,” Felicity says softly. “One minute and then we’ll go in.”

He turns sideways in his seat and rests his cheek against the headrest. “Okay.”

“This might be really bad. Like, painfully awkward at best.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “It might be.”

“Remember when we were kids and this used to be fun?”

“Mostly I remember being bored,” he admits, and Felicity laughs.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine hanging out with us back then was exciting for you.”

He strokes his thumb against the side of her neck. “Hey, that’s not what I meant.”

She turns her head slightly to the side. “No?”

“I just meant, I would’ve been happier getting like, pizza and running around at the playground or something. Stuffy restaurants get old fast.”

“It must have been terrible to grow up eating at five star restaurants every weekend,” she says seriously. “I can’t even imagine the weight of all that privilege.”

He chuckles. “Okay, you’ve made your point.”

Felicity pouts. “I really wish we could hang out at your place instead of with our parents. And Sara. And Laurel.”

“Me too.”

She sighs and reaches out to smooth her hands over his suit jacket. “I was kind of looking forward to it.”

He reaches down with his free hand and slides his hand up her thigh, under her dress. “Oh yeah?”

She sighs and curls into him. “Yeah, it… sounded really nice.”

He squeezes her thigh and feels the muscles tense against his hand. “We’ve still got tomorrow.”

“Okay,” she breathes. He trails his fingers up the inside of her thigh and she inhales. “Oliver.”

“Hmm?”

“People can see,” she murmurs.

“It’s dark out.”

She shifts a little in her seat. “We can’t get caught.”

“We aren’t doing anything.”

“Your hand is… under my dress.”

“I really wanted you to come over tonight,” he confesses. “I was going to cook for you.”

“Don’t make me more upset about it than I already am.”

Her skin is so warm, so soft, he wants to touch her everywhere. “You could still come over later tonight.”

“I can’t.” Felicity frowns a little. “My mom wants me to go home with them for the night, get a little extra time with me. She guilted me into it, I’m sorry.”

He idly wonders what kind of underwear she’s wearing under her dress, what he’s missing out on. “It’s okay.”

“I really don’t want to do this. Things have been so weird ever since…”

“Me and Sara.”

She gives him a sympathetic look. “It’s not your fault.”

He sighs, rubs his fingertips against her thighs. “We didn't exactly make it easier either.”

“It was last summer, Laurel can’t hold a grudge forever.”

“You sure about that?”

She laughs bitterly. “You may have a point there.”

“You know we can’t actually sit here in the car the whole time, right?”

She gives him a hopeful smile. “No?”

“Come on, let’s get it over with.”

“Dinner’s going to be torture,” she groans.

He traces patterns over the top of her thigh. “Felicity.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s just focus on getting through this and I swear to god, I’ll make it up to you.”

She blinks at him, her eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

“Let me take you out tomorrow.” He massages her quad and Felicity whimpers a little.

“Really?” she asks quietly.

“Yeah, I want to take you out somewhere, buy you dinner.”

She gives him one of those looks that makes his heart soar. “I’d really like that.”

He cups her through her underwear and kisses her earlobe. “And then I want to fuck your brains out.”

“Oh my _god_.” Felicity’s hips push into his hand. “Promise?”

“I promise,” he murmurs.

She lets out a shaky exhale. “I don’t know if I can wait until tomorrow.”

He takes his hand away and smooths out the skirt of her dress for her. “I’ll make it worth the wait.”

She sticks out her bottom lip and grabs his hand. “I was enjoying that.”

He squeezes her palm and lets go. “Sorry, we have a meal to sit through, which, knowing our parents, is going to be at least three hours long and incredibly emotionally taxing.”

“Yay,” she deadpans. “Lucky us.”

They get out of the car and walk down the street to the restaurant side by side. They don’t hold hands, don’t touch at all, and it feels strange, abnormal, wrong. Oliver hadn’t really realized how naturally they act like a couple until they can’t, like right now, if their families found out about the two of them dinner could go from awkward to explosive. He holds the door of the restaurant open for her and follows her inside, his mother is talking to the hostess and down by the bar he can see Laurel sitting on a stool next to some guy he doesn’t recognize but he doesn’t know where everyone else is.

“Oliver, darling!” His mother sweeps over, wearing elegant wide legged silk pants and a printed blouse, her skin glowing. “How are you sweetheart?”

“I’m fine.”

“Hi Moira.” Felicity tugs on the cuffs of the long sleeves of her dress. 

“Hello dear.” His mother looks vaguely over in the direction of the bar. “I believe Quentin and your mother are just, oh, there they are!”

She turns in the direction of the bar and waves, and Oliver makes out Donna coming toward them in a slinky purple dress, holding a tropical looking cocktail while Lance walks along next to her, holding what Oliver hopes to god is a tonic water.

“Felicity, babygirl!” Donna gives Felicity a one-armed hug, holding her drink up high so she doesn’t spill, and frowns at Felicity’s dress. “Baby, I thought we said you’d wear the pink dress.”

“I changed my mind.”

Donna reaches out and carefully arranges Felicity’s curls around her shoulders. “But you look so pretty in pink.”

“And I was cold, and that dress doesn’t even have straps.”

“And it wouldn’t kill you to show a little skin either, how are you ever going to catch a man if you won’t even show off what I gave you?”

“Mom, stop.”

Oliver’s stomach tightens with secondhand embarrassment for Felicity as her cheeks flush and he puts a hand against the small of her back, just for a moment. “Hey Mom, where’s Dad and Thea?”

“Your father is coming from a late meeting and Thea’s at a sleepover.” She checks her watch. “Our table should be almost ready. Where’s Sara?

“Right here!” Sara brushes past a geriatric couple arguing over who should drive home near the front entrance. “When’s our table going to be ready? I’m starving.”

Oliver watches Lance take in Sara’s outfit, she’s dressed in a pair of Nike running tights and a cropped hoodie, her hair pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. When she notices his face Sara rolls her eyes. “What?”

“Nothing.” Lance gives her a warm smile and looks back towards the bar. “Would you mind getting your sister? I think we’re almost ready.”

The hostess wobbles over to them in her stilettos and puts a gentle hand on his mother’s arm. “Mrs. Queen, your table is ready.”

“Sara,” Lance prompts.

“Why do I have to get her?” Sara scuffs the toe of her sneaker against the floor.

“Now,” Lance mutters, and Sara gives him a sarcastic salute and jogs away to pull Laurel out of her flirtation with the guy on the stool next to her.

“If you’d follow me, please.” The hostess starts to walk away and Oliver and Felicity fall in line behind their mothers.

_Okay?_ he mouths at her.

She nods and grabs his hand, just for a second, before pulling it away, and leans in to whisper in his ear. “I will be when you fuck me tomorrow.”

Goddamn. This dinner is going to be torture.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to find out how big of a disaster dinner will be and more importantly, if Oliver keeps his promise!

_Dream a dream, use the scene, touch me anywhere 'cause I'm your baby_  
_Grab my waist, don't waste any part_  
_I believe that you see me for who I am_  
-Lana Del Rey, Love Song

They’re all well into their main course when Oliver’s father leans back in his chair from where he’s sitting in between Oliver and his mom and says, “So kids, where are you headed to for spring break this year?”

Oliver glances at Laurel, who for some unfortunate reason has been seated across from him and one chair over, too close for comfort, and they lock eyes. Last year the two of them went to Cancun with Tommy and Sara; Laurel and Oliver spent the entire week drinking and fucking on repeat while Tommy and Sara made it their mission to go to every party they could find.

Laurel takes a hug sip from her third glass of wine and looks down at her untouched plate of risotto, and Oliver clutches his glass of whiskey. “Tommy and I haven’t really talked about it yet.”

“I’m too busy studying for the LSATS to party this year, anyway.” Laurel drains her glass and signals to the waiter for a refill.

Next to Oliver and directly across from Laurel, Sara snorts. “You sure about that?”

“Red wine has antioxidants,” Laurel retorts.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”

“Girls,” Lance says, quiet and stern.

“She started it.” Laurel pouts.

“I’m not the one who’s drunk right now,” Sara hisses.

“I am _not_.”

“Sara, stop antagonizing your sister,” Lance snaps.

Sara drops her fork into her bowl of pesto pasta. “Me? How is this my fault?”

Laurel sneers. “You know what you did.”

“Seriously,” Sara says. “You need to get over yourself.”

The server returns with a fresh glass of wine and Laurel takes it before he can even set it down. “Thank you _so_ much.”

Oliver’s dad clears his throat. “Well Oliver, it isn’t too late to get a hotel suite. Let me know where you kids want to go and I’ll have my assistant book it.”

“Thanks Dad,” Oliver mutters, trying to ignore the amazed look on Felicity’s face from the other end of the table, like being offered a vacation wherever he wants, just like that, is unbelievable.

Laurel leans back in her chair, her glass of wine held loosely in one hand. “You know what, since I’m not going, Felicity should go with you guys.”

Sara kicks Oliver’s ankle under the table. “Oh yeah?” she asks Laurel.

“Sure,” Laurel says casually. “I mean, has she ever even flown first class? What an opportunity.”

“Laurel,” Oliver whispers, not daring to look down the table at Felicity.

“Oh come on, you know what they say.” Laurel takes a sip of wine. “Travel is good for teenagers. Gives them life experience. God knows she could use it.”

“Laurel, that’s enough,” Lance hisses.

“What?” Laurel laughs, and tilts her head, looking right at Oliver. “Hey Ollie, you think it’s a good idea, right? I mean, speaking of life experience. You’ll finally have a chance to collect the full set.”

Sara bounces in her chair like she’s trying to restrain herself from jumping over the table and knocking Laurel out. “You did not just say that.”

Everyone else at the table is frozen, when Oliver dares to glance down the table Felicity is staring straight down at her caprese salad. Laurel swigs her wine, a nasty little smile on her face. “Oh come on, just admit it. I know you, Ollie, you love a challenge.”

“Laurel,” he says tightly. “Don’t do this.”

“Do what?” she asks innocently. “I’m just stating the obvious. And let's be honest, we all know Felicity’s had just the _sweetest_ crush on you forever, and now it’s her chance! Hey Donna, you thought my dad was a step up, what do you think about your baby girl hooking up with a billionaire?”

Lance goes so ashen for a second Oliver thinks he’s going to have a heart attack. “Laurel. Apologize. _Now._ ”

“What exactly am I supposed to apologize for?” Laurel turns sideways to look at Lance, her face contorting in pain. “I’m not a cheating, gold digging” -

“Laurel!” Sara slams her hands down on the table. “Shut the fuck up already.”

Donna sets her napkin over her plate and stands up. “Felicity, baby, get up, we’re leaving. Moira, Robert, it was lovely to see you.” 

Oliver’s parents both murmur the same and Felicity meekly stands up and follows her mother away. Sara gets up and crosses her arms over her chest, looking down at Laurel in disgust. “Are you happy now?”

Laurel blinks heavily and a single tear rolls down her cheek. “I’m never happy.”

*

Felicity is glad that Sara leaves for a party the next night before Oliver picks her up, because that way Felicity doesn’t have to explain why she’s wearing a skintight black lace dress and red lipstick, has contacts in instead of her glasses and blew her hair out in a silky sheet.

When Oliver picks her up he meets her at the entrance of the lobby, the Bentley flashing hazard lights at the curb. His eyes widen as he reaches for her hand, impeccably dressed in dark grey slacks and a midnight blue button down. “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you.” Felicity squeezes his hand, feeling a rush of nerves as she thinks about what Oliver said to her last night.

_I want to take you out somewhere, buy you dinner. And then I want to fuck your brains out._

He walks her to the passenger side of the car and opens the door for her because Oliver’s a gentleman like that. She presses her thighs together as she buckles up and gives him a tight smile when he gets into the car and pulls away from the curb. Oliver holds her hand the whole way to the restaurant, some new exclusive sushi place he was able to get a last minute reservation for simply by calling and dropping his name.

He parks in front of the valet station and leads Felicity inside, one of his hands light on the small of her back. The restaurant is dark inside, gleaming wood tables and lots of glass, a massive fish tank built into one wall. Oliver walks them up to the host, a girl with long silky pigtails and pale blue lipstick. She leads them to a quiet table in one corner, sets the menus down for them and bobs her head at Oliver demurely before walking away.

“This is nice,” Felicity comments, shaking out her napkin.

Oliver shrugs, like eating at a hot new restaurant is no big deal, which she guess isn’t for him. “You like sushi, right?”

“Sure,” she says, trying to sound as cool and unaffected as he does.

When their waitress comes Oliver orders some kind of sake martini for both of them and she takes his order without carding him, and the drinks come barely three minutes later along with a serving of edamame and miso soups for both of them. Felicity takes a sip of her drink and swallows, there’s no bite to it, just a clean crispness with a hint of orange.

“Hey.” Oliver reaches his hand out towards hers and Felicity takes it. “You doing okay?”

They texted for awhile last night, while she was watching trashy reality tv with her mom and Oliver sat at a bar with Sara, keeping her company while she ranted about Laurel.

“Yeah,” Felicity answers, trying to sound confident. “I mean… it’s not like she was right about us.”

“Like, she doesn’t actually know we’re together?”

“Well yeah, but…” A terrible thought occurs to her. “You know I don’t actually give a shit about your money, right?” 

Oliver laughs and gives her a warm smile. “Yeah, I know.”

“Okay. Cool.”

“That thing Laurel said, that I like a challenge” -

“She was just trying to get under your skin,” Felicity says. “I think if that were true you would’ve made a move on me like, way earlier. You’ve always treated me like I was...”

“Off limits?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, good,” he says. “I wouldn’t want you to think that you’re just” -

“I know,” she says softly. “I don’t.”

He runs his thumb over the back of her hand. “Okay.”

Their waitress comes back and Oliver orders them a bunch of rolls to share. The remnants of the awkwardness of last night fades away and soon it feels the way it always does when she’s with Oliver, easy and natural. She has a second cocktail but Oliver declines because he’s driving, which Felicity appreciates, but she sure as hell needs another one, all she can think about is what’s going to happen after dinner, her body thrumming with nervous anticipation, legs jiggling under the table.

By the time they’ve finished eating and their check comes Oliver seems on edge too, he already has his card ready, signs the bill as soon as the waitress brings it back. They go outside and hold hands on the sidewalk while the valet brings the car around for them. When it comes they both get in and she barely has time to get her seatbelt on before Oliver’s pulling out into traffic, his fingers clenched around the steering wheel.

By the time they make it back to the penthouse and go upstairs Felicity feels like she’s bursting out of her skin. Oliver locks the front door behind them and leads her to his bedroom, his hand firm and warm in hers.

“Uh, I’m just gonna…” Felicity tilts her head towards the bathroom and he nods, his fingers going to the top button of his shirt.

She goes into the bathroom and shuts the door, walks over to the sink and looks at herself in the mirror, relieved that her makeup still looks fresh. She uses the toilet and washes her hands, thinks about taking her dress off and walking out in her underwear but then she remembers that they have all night and Tommy is out of town, maybe Oliver would like a bit of a show instead.

When she walks back into his room he’s stripped down to a pair of black boxer briefs and her mouth goes dry; she still can’t get over his body, how attracted she is to him on a level that feels cellular. He gives her a heated look, fingers twitching by his sides.

“C’mere,” he says softly, gesturing for her to join him over by the windows, the lights of Starling City glowing outside.

She walks across the room to him, her heels sinking into the plush carpet. Oliver catches her by the hips and turns her around, so his chest is against her back, and rests his hands on her shoulders.

“Can I take your dress off?” he asks quietly.

“Please,” she murmurs back.

He braces one hand against her back as he drags the zipper all the way down. Felicity helps him get it down over her shoulders and pulls her arms free, he tugs it past her hips and the fabric falls to her ankles, Felicity carefully steps out of it and gasps at the feeling of Oliver’s bare chest against her back, his large hands holding her to him by the hips.

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he says into her ear.

“Me too,” she admits.

One of his hands slides over her stomach and her muscles jump under his touch. “Oh yeah?” he asks.

“Mm- hm.” She curls her hands around his forearms to steady herself.

Oliver kisses that spot just under her jaw that always makes her squirm. “What did you think about?”

His fingers tease at the hem of her thong and she swallows a moan. “You.”

Oliver brings his hands up to cup her through her bra. “What about me?”

She can’t think straight, his fingers are pinching and tugging just right and it makes her arch back against him, her head falling onto his shoulder. “Please.”

He unhooked her bra and tugs it off for her, brings his hands back to hold her naked breasts in his palms. “Please what?”

“Fuck,” she exhales shakily.

He rolls his hips against her ass. “We will.”

He drags one hand down her stomach and wedges it in between her legs, and she gasps out in relief at the pressure. He doesn’t do anything with his hand so she tries to grind against it, she’s shaking everywhere and there’s a pulse between her leg that makes her roll her hips, trying to find some friction. Oliver kisses her shoulder, the back of her neck, his other hand firm on her hip.

“Please,” she groans desperately.

He scrapes his teeth against her earlobe and she shudders. “Please what?”

“Touch me,” she begs.

“You want me to make you come?” he whispers.

“Oliver.” Felicity’s going to die soon if he doesn’t touch her for real, she’s been anticipating this for for a full twenty-four hours. “Oliver, please.”

“Hey, okay, okay.” He walks her over to the foot of his bed, rolls her under off and has her lie down at the edge of the bed with her legs dangling off.

He kneels down and unbuckles her shoes, slides her heels off for her and lines them up on the floor. He grabs her thighs and slings her legs over his shoulders, and Felicity’s stomach drops. “Oh god.”

He gives her a wicked smile and reaches out to part her with one hand. He leans in and kisses the inside of her thigh, drags his tongue up to the juncture of her hip. She drops back on her elbows, head lifted to watch him suck on her thigh as her stomach tightens in anticipation. She gasps when he finally puts his mouth on her, his tongue flicking out and sending shockwaves through her body. She’s done this a few times but it’s never felt like this before, like she’s an electric wire pulsing with energy, like the slightest thing could make her explode.

“Oh wow!” she breathes out, and has to reach down to sink a hand in his short hair so she can steady herself.

He’s gentle but determined, alternating between little swirls and flicks that make her legs tremble. Pressure builds at the bottom of her stomach as heat spreads through her and then it’s rolling through her whole body, making her arch back and gasp and gasp. Oliver sucks and flicks his tongue and her hips spasms as she heats that peak, collapsing onto her back with a shocked gasp. 

Oliver gets one knee up on the bed and clambers over her, staring down at her with heated eyes as he holds her open so he can push two fingers inside her.

“Oh god,” she groans, rolling her hips automatically. It’s good but it’s not enough, she clamps down on his fingers in desperation but she needs more. “Can you - do that thing with your thumb?”

“Yeah.” He’s still watching her, eyes shining in the dark room as he brushes it against her and she jerks in response. “Can I put another finger in you?”

She stops moving but his thumb rubs in circles, making her shiver, they’ve never done three before. “Will it hurt?” 

“No,” he murmurs, and drops his head down to kiss her, “and if it does I’ll stop, I promise.”

“Okay,” she breathes.

“Yeah?” he asks, thumb still circling. “It’ll feel good, okay? I’ll make it feel good.”

“Okay.” She braces herself as he pulls his fingers out and when he pushes them in it’s sharper, deeper, _more._

“Is that okay?” he asks.

She feels strange, full and riding a wave of pressure that feels close to approaching that line where pleasure becomes pain, or maybe it’s the other way around, she isn’t sure. “I don’t know,” she breathes, reaching down to hold his wrist. “Don’t… don’t move them.”

“Okay.” He’s very still next to her, waiting for direction.

“Just let me…” She rolls her hips and fire spreads through her body. “Holy shit!”

She rolls her hips again and has to clench down on his fingers, her whole body feels like a bow, strung impossibly tight as she cries out. He kisses her temple, moving his thumb in time to the roll of her hips, and she reaches up to hold his shoulders, a cold sweat breaking over her skin. She digs her heels into the bed, desperately rolling her hips as it builds and builds until she feels delirious, her breath coming in short sharp bursts. Oliver just keeps moving his thumb against her until she’s coiled up like a spring, begging to be released.

“Fuck me,” she pleads. “Fuck me, fuck me,”

“Shh.” He sweeps her hair off her face, nuzzles her throat, “Fuck my fingers,”

She sobs, her head thrown back as she works her hips. She’s burning up and pressure is building up inside her and she grabs frantically at Oliver. “I need… I can’t, please, fuck me, oh god, Oliver, fuck me, please!”

“Jesus,” he breathes. “Felicity.”

“I - oh god!” It’s almost too much but she doesn’t want him to stop, she wants to come, and then come again, and again, and maybe if she could just stay here forever naked in his bed that would be all she could ever really want.

“Come,” he growls. “Come and I’ll fuck you.”

It’s tearing through her, she clutches at him as she starts to moan from somewhere deep inside, loader and loader as it rushes through her until her thighs clamp around his wrist as she comes so hard it almost hurts, stomach contracting as it rolls through her body.

Oliver pushes her legs apart and kneels between them, one foot on the floor, and reaches down to push himself inside her. Both of them groan as he bottoms out and Oliver holds her legs up for her, hands under her calves to keep them in the air as he pushes himself into her, eyes half shut, a vein in his temple pulsing. Felicity thrashes on the bed, she can’t get any leverage like this and he can’t go very deep in this position. She whines and Oliver looks down to give her a loopy smile.

“You feel fucking incredible,” he says. He reaches down to stroke his fingers over her, brushing right above where he’s moving in and out of her and Felicity hisses, clenching down around him. 

He leans forward slowly, lowering her legs so they’re spread wide on the bed, and rests his hands on either side of her head as he pushes deeper inside her, hitting a spot that makes her press her knees against his hips and clutch at his biceps.

“There! Felicity blurts out. “There, right there!”

His eyes darken as he thrusts into her, and she feels her eyes roll back. Oliver starts to move in a steady rhythm and she cries out loudly, her hips trying to match his rhythm. “Yeah,” he grunts. “You want it?”

“Yes, there, there, don’t stop!” she babbles. “That’s good, just like that, just like that!”

He snaps his hips and she’s so glad no one is here except for them because she knows she’s being loud but she doesn’t care, it feels so good to let go, and she’s with Oliver, who seems to go crazy for that, loves it when she begs and tells him what she wants. He braces himself on his hands and starts to pound into her and she gasps as her whole body locks up, going hot with pleasure as it rushes through her.

“Yes!” she shouts. “Yes! Don’t stop, I’m, I’m, _fuck! _”__

__Oliver keeps fucking her until she’s stopped shaking, cups her chin to give her a bruising kiss to distract her as he pulls out. He flips over and crawls up the bed to sit against the headboard and Felicity walks on her knees to him and crawls into his lap, legs falling to the sides. He’s breathing heavily as he strokes himself and Felicity reaches out to grip the headboard as she starts to rub against him. She’s hot everywhere, she feels so aroused it’s like being drunk, the only thing she cares about is _more, more, more,_ desperately writhing against Oliver until he groans and lets go of himself so she can sink down on him._ _

__“Oh god,” she whimpers as she takes him all the way and rolls her hips, heat spiraling through her._ _

__He gives her a cocky grin and thrusts up into her, making her gasps. “You gonna come again?”_ _

__“Yeah,” she cries out. “God, you, oh _god!_ ”_ _

__She gives up on words and rocks her hips, crying out when he grabs her by the waist and pistons up into her. Her head falls forward as she lets him set a rhythm, hard and fast, until she’s lost in a rising tide of warmth and pressure that makes her work her hips desperately as she starts to come._ _

__“Oh god,” she gasps. “Oh god, oh my god, oh, oh, oh oh!”_ _

__Oliver doesn’t stop, he keeps pounding up into her as his fingers dig into her sides and she stares at him in shock, spiraling into another orgasm that makes her shake and grind down on him and she can’t do anything but scream her way through it, one of Oliver’s hands coming up to the back of her neck as she drops her head to his shoulder. He finally slows down, until he’s just barely rocking inside her; Felicity lifts her head enough to look down at him, still sucking in air as she gets her breath back._ _

__They lock eyes and there’s something in his she hasn’t seen before, something like a challenge, and he starts to thrust into her again, not hard, more like he’s asking a question. She nods slightly and rocks back into him, and reaches down to grip his free hand, their palms pressing against each other. He starts to speed up and she matches his pace, her hands clutching onto his as their hips slam together and pretty soon she’s groaning as her body starts to contract, another climax rolling through her. The hand in her neck tightens and she arches her back as she comes with a shout._ _

__Oliver surges up to kiss her as she rolls off of him. She stretches out and he slides in behind her, turning her over onto her side. She moans as he kisses her neck, runs his hand down her side and across her hip, works it between her leg and starts to stroke so softly it makes her whimper and shake._ _

__“I could fuck you all night,” he whisperes heatedly. “You make me fucking crazy.”_ _

__She moans in agreement and rocks her ass back where he’s hard against her. Oliver kisses her shoulder and pulls her thigh back, reaches down and slowly pushes into her. She sighs at the feeling of having him back inside her, inhaling sharply when his hand comes back to touch her lightly in time to him moving inside her._ _

__She reaches back blindly for him, her hand finding his cheek. “The feeling is mutual. Very, very, mutual.”_ _

__Oliver grinds against her ass and uses one hand to gently push her over onto her stomach. She lifts her hips up and groans at the deeper angle. He’s blanketing his body over hers and she feels so full, so good, that she has to bite the inside of her cheek, her head pillowed on her elbows as he starts driving inside her._ _

__She’s so gone, at this point all she can do is whimper and moan weakly as she pushes her hips back into him, feeling his fingers tighten on her hips. His breath starts to get ragged and then he groans, hips slamming against her ass as he comes, one of his hands catching her by the chin to plant a sloppy kiss on her lips. He exhales slowly and pulls out, flops down onto the bed next to her and lets out a worn out laugh as he pulls her to him._ _

__She burrows into his side, snuggling her cheek against his chest as his arms come around her. They’re both breathing heavily and Oliver’s hands trail up and down her arms as he kisses the side of her head. Felicity lets her eyes close as she slides one arm around his waist, and listens to his heart beating under her ear, and they lay there like that for a long time, just breathing together, both of them sated and content and yeah, maybe they’re on a crash collision with reality but right now it’s just the two of them and it all feels worth it, to be here in Oliver’s arms, his lips brushing over her skin as his arms hold Felicity close._ _


	13. Chapter 13

_Whatever's on tonight, I just wanna party with you_  
_Topanga's hot tonight, I'm taking off my bathing suit_  
-Lana Del Rey, The Next Best American Record 

“So, I think I just need to get the lockbox open…” Tommy stares down at his phone, squinting in the bright Malibu sunshine.

Behind him Oliver’s standing on the front porch of one of Malcolm Merlyn’s vacation houses while Felicity and Sara sit on the stack of luggage in the driveway, heads dropped back so their faces tilt up towards the sun. When Oliver mentioned to Tommy that his dad offered to book their spring break Tommy shrugged and suggested his dad’s beach house in Malibu instead.

They normally go bigger, hit cities with more of a party vibe like Cancun and Miami, but all of them are feeling a little exhausted this year. Tommy’s working his ass off to get into business school and Oliver and Sara aren’t really the same kind of people they were last year, the typical spring break cycle of meaningless casual sex and alcohol a little less appealing after a near death experience that left them both traumatized.

It was Sara’s idea to invite Felicity, since there was no way Laurel would be coming under any circumstances anyway. None of them have talked to Laurel since that awful dinner and whenever he thinks about her he gets a cold wave of dread that rushes all over his body. Oliver’d played it cool when Sara brought up Felicity, like he could take her or leave her, and had tried not to act completely thrilled when Felicity accepted.

“Got it!” Tommy cheers, popping the lockbox open and withdrawing a set of keys.

The girls hop off the suitcases and Tommy gets the front door open before running down the driveway to help Oliver grab the luggage and take it into the house. The first floor is open concept, a massive living room with a huge leather couch that faces a flatscreen mounted above a gas fireplace, and the back wall is all glass so they can see the ocean, right past the back deck that has striped chaise chairs and a hot tub. 

Oliver follows the girls around to the right where the kitchen is, all white and chrome finishing, and continues down the hall towards the stairs. He and Tommy carry the suitcases up to the second floor with the girls trailing behind them, walk down a short hallway leading to two bedrooms and a home gym that overlooks the ocean. 

“We can take the master,” Sara suggests, jumping onto the king sized bed. “Unless you guys want to share a bed and Felicity and I can take the guest room.”

“Yeah, no thanks.” Tommy grabs his suitcase and Oliver follows him to the guest room across the hall with two full sized beds to dump his stuff.

They all go downstairs and do an evaluation of the kitchen. The fridge was stocked with the basics by the housekeeper who stopped by that morning but there’s not much besides eggs, bread, fresh fruit, condiments and a bag of ground coffee.

“I’m gonna do an alcohol run,” Sara declares, already opening the notes app in her phone to make a list. “What does everyone want?”

Felicity shrugs. “I don’t care.”

“Whiskey,” Oliver requests.

“I’m craving a Manhattan,” Tommy says.

“Okay, so whiskey, vermouth, bitters…” Sara taps at her phone. “Vodka for me, maybe some gin, mixers…”

“I can go with you if you want help,” Tommy offers.

“You’d better,” Sara responds. “I’m not carrying all that by myself.” She finishes typing a shopping list and sets her phone down on the counter. “I’m gonna go grab my bag.”

She runs upstairs while Oliver explores the cooking equipment. Felicity swings up into the island, bare legs dangling, the hem of her pale blue sundress riding up her thighs. Sara comes back down with a bag slung across her chest and squints at the window that faces the driveway. “I'll drive the rental, c’mon Merlyn.”

Tommy scoops up the house keys and follows Sara out of the kitchen, the front door slamming shut a few seconds later. Oliver walks over to where Felicity is sitting and leans in, hands resting on either side of her hips on the island as she lets her legs fall open so he can stand between them.

“Hey,” he murmurs.

She tilts her face up, blue eyes twinkling behind her glasses. “Hey.”

He cups her cheek with one hand and leans in slow, lips brushing against hers in a soft kiss. She hums against his mouth and reaches out to settle her hands against his hips. Oliver catches her bottom lip and sucks, she tastes like strawberry lipgloss and the vanilla latte she drank in the car on the way here from the airport.

It’s the first time they’ve been alone today and it feels so good just to kiss, his body craving hers like it always seems to recently, like he just can’t get enough of it, her soft curves and plush lips, the way she whines in the back of her throat when he spreads one hand over her thigh -

The front door bangs open and he stumbles back like he’s been shocked. Felicity freezes, her eyes wide with horror as she stares at him.

“Hey!” Sara calls out. “I forgot my phone.”

Oliver glances over at the counter in panic where Sara’s phone is lying right where she left it, and snatches it up so when she comes around the corner it’s held out in his hand.

“Oh, thanks Ollie.” She snatches it from him and gives Felicity a quick wave before jogging out of the room, the front door shutting behind her a few seconds later.

“Omygod,” Felicity says in a rush. “That was close.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, walking back over to her.

She puts her hand out and pushes it against his chest when he leans in to kiss her. “What are you doing?”

“Uh, getting back what we were doing?” 

“Yeah I just…” Her hand smooths over his tee shirt before dropping into her lap. “I just think maybe while we’re here we should be more careful.”

Oliver takes a step back. “Are you saying that you don’t want to hook up while we’re here?”

“I don’t know.” Felicity pushes her hand against her forehead. “It might be safer to try and give each other some space for the sake of not being totally obvious.”

“Yeah. Or we could just sneak around.”

Felicity’s eyes widen and Oliver’s sure she’s going to tell him there’s no way that’s going to work, but then she hops down from the island and reaches for his hand. “We’ll just have to be fast then, before they come back.”

“Felicity Smoak, are you asking me for a quickie?” he teases.

“I guess so.” She goes up on her tiptoes for a kiss. “Not being able to share a bed at night is gonna be torture, I’ll take my pleasure where I can get it.”

He grabs her ass, smirking. “Noted.”

They end up in the master bathroom, behind the locked door and the fan on for extra sound cover, just in case. Felicity yanks the skirt of her dress up to her waist and kicks her pink lace thong off, puts her glasses next to the sink and swings up onto the counter. Oliver follows her lead, unbuckles his jeans and shoves them down before coming to stand between her legs. Her hair is up in her usual ponytail so he goes right for her neck, hands on her thighs as he kisses his way down her collarbone.

Felicity lets out a long sigh, one of her hands curling around the back of his neck and scratching gently with her fingernails. Her skin is warm and so soft he still can’t really believe it, he doesn’t want to leave marks on her so he gives her butterfly kisses, laves his tongue around her earlobe, tugs the straps of her dress down her shoulders with his teeth while she squirms against him, her free hand coming to his boxers to take him out.

Oliver swallows back a groan at the feeling of her hand curling around him and walks his fingers up her thighs. Her head tips forward, pressing into his chest as his fingers part her, one finger slowly twisting inside as his thumb stretches up. She hisses and tightens her grip around him as she starts rolling her hips and Oliver grits his teeth as he pushes into her hand. They’re both breathing heavily, the only sound in the room besides the whir of the fan. She works her hand faster and he curses under his breath, thumb circling against her until she cries out, her knees pressing against his hips.

“I’m ready, I’m ready,” she pants out, pulling up her dress a little more.

He pulls his finger out and grips himself, works his hand a few times before bracing himself against the counter as he pushes into her. Felicity moans, her arms wrapping around him as he sinks in. He can’t get over it, how she always feels so warm and wet, perfect, like she was made just for him. She tries to roll her hips but she doesn’t have much leverage like this so he grinds into her as he thrusts, lost in the chase, body craving that fire, the way only she makes him feel, like here, with his hands all over her, moving inside her, everything is okay, right, exactly as it should be, some kind of internal peace he’s never experienced before being with her, like this, just the two of them and their bodies and their breath all flowing together in perfect sync.

*

“Oh yeah.” Tommy leans back in one of the chaise lounge chairs, drink in one hand. “I’m staying right here all week.”

They’re all drinking on the back deck, Oliver’s next to Tommy in swim trunks with a glass of whiskey watching Sara spread sunscreen all over Felicity’s back. “Yeah, this isn’t bad,” he agrees.

“Neither is the view,” Tommy quips, jutting his chin out where Sara’s stretching, her six pack abs on display in a tiny red two piece.

Felicity’s stretched out on her stomach reading a book because she doesn’t believe in taking vacations from homework, wearing a hot pink string bikini that is just screaming to be untied. He has no idea how he’s supposed to get through a week of watching her parade around half dressed and not be able to touch her whenever he wants, knowing what she’d feel like under his hands only makes it worse. He wants to untie her swimsuit with his teeth, suck marks onto her skin, lick his way down her stomach, press his entire body against hers and fuck her over and over again.

Jesus. He’s losing his fucking mind.

“Hot?” Tommy asks.

“Huh?”

Tommy points up where the sun is beating overhead. “You’re sweating, dude.”

Oliver takes a sip of his whiskey. “I’m good.”

They order pizza for dinner and have it delivered, eat it on the back deck in their swimsuits while the sun dips behind the ocean in a fiery blaze. They’ve been drinking for a few hours and they're all covered in a sheen of sweat and sunscreen, Sara and Felicity both have their hair tied up in messy buns and he can’t stop staring at Felicity’s neck, her cleavage, her legs. Sara hooks her phone up to the speakers and Tommy and Oliver make a fresh round of drinks for everyone, whiskey cocktails for the guys and vodka lemonades for the girls. Sara and Felicity start to dance, Sara’s hands on Felicity’s hips, and Oliver grips his drink, wondering how the hell he's going to survive the week.

*

They do go out, to breakfast or dinner, walk on the beach and hit up the market a few times, but for the most part the four of them spend the week at the house drinking in the sun, their skin all turning a golden tan after a few days of lying on the back deck. Oliver and Sara run on the beach each morning, Tommy and Oliver take the free weights down from the gym and lift on the back deck after lunch while Sara and Felicity sit on the lounge chairs and pretend not to watch them. It’s good to get out of Starling City, it’s home and Oliver loves it but it’s nice to be in a place that’s quiet, to not be assaulted by lights and loud sounds constantly, to not have to ask himself a question that’s harder than what does he want to eat or drink, to get some time to just relax, where no one cares that he’s a Queen, where he isn’t surrounded by the pressure of his family or his reputation.

He misses Felicity constantly, even though she’s there. They touch when they can get away with it: hands brushing against each other as they walk by, feet touching under the table at brunch, hugs goodnight that last a few seconds longer than they should. He aches for her, falls asleep each night thinking about her on the other side of the wall, in the master bed with Sara.

They kiss when they can get away with it, against the wall outside restaurant bathrooms or on the landing of the stairs, and even though they were sneaking around before this is on a different level, and the constant pressure only makes it hotter, knowing they have to be careful not to get caught. They haven’t slept together since the day they got here, which makes every day feel heightened, constantly trying to find opportunities to get time alone together.

It’s Felicity who finds their first opportunity, on the fourth day they’re in Malibu. It’s late afternoon, Sara’s just left to pick up dinner and Tommy is lacing up his shoes to go on a run when Felicity comes down the stair in a strapless cream and navy bikini top with matching bottoms that lace up the sides.

“Hey,” she says, leaning against the wall. “Um, Oliver, could you check out the shower in our bathroom? I can’t get the water to turn hot.”

She isn’t really looking at him, sounding vaguely annoyed and _oh, okay,_ he gets what’s going on here.

He stands up from the couch, hands in the pockets of his basketball shorts. “Can’t Tommy help you?”

“I don’t care who helps me,” she says, sounding indifferent. “But I’d prefer not to take a cold shower.”

Tommy shoots him an irritated look. “I’m about to go on a run, can’t you do like, one thing?”

“Fine.” He even rolls his eyes at Tommy, who gives him the finger before going out the back door.

Oliver walks over to Felicity and braces one hand against the wall next to her head. “Is there really something wrong with the shower?”

She gives him a mischievous smile. “Maybe.”

He reaches down and tugs on one of the bows that’s holding the bottom part of her swimsuit together. “I’d better go check it out then.”

He follows her upstairs and into the bathroom, makes sure to lock the door and turns the fan on. He takes his tee shirt off and leans into the shower, turns the water on and sticks one hand under the spray. “Feels okay to me.”

Arms wrap around his stomach and slide down to the hem of his shorts. “Oops,” she says cheerfully. “My mistake.”

Her hands push at his shorts and Oliver helps her pull them down. Her hands reach into his boxer briefs and he sucks in a breath when she wraps a hand around him. He braces himself against the shower door as her fingers tighten around him and starts to slide up and down until he’s hard and hot in her hand.

“Turn around,” she murmurs.

When he does Felicity looks at him with flushed cheeks and she sinks to her knees, her hands coming up to his hips to steady herself. He’s breathless, pushing down his boxer briefs and kicking them off as she curls one hand around him to grip around the base and flicks out her tongue. He hisses through clenched teeth and rests one hand over the top of her head, not pushing, just to feel her here, on her knees for him. She plays around with her tongue for awhile before taking him into her mouth, shivers running up his spine at the feel of her lips suctioning around him. He lets her bob her head a few times before gently pulling her off of him.

“Don’t wanna come yet,” he explains as he sinks down, and presses his mouth to hers.

She goes soft under him, melting into his arms as he parts her lips with his tongue. Oliver slides one hand behind her neck and lays her down on her back on the thick bath mat. He hovers over her and comes down carefully, weight in his forearms and knees so he doesn’t crush her. Her skin is hot against his, when he buries his nose in her throat she smells like ocean salt and coconut. Felicity wraps her legs around his back and grabs onto his biceps and like this he can feel the dampness of her bikini bottoms against his bare skin.

He kisses the side of her neck as he slides one hand under her back to untie her top. She arches her back and Oliver slides the scrap of fabric out from under her and tosses it across the floor. He takes one breast into his mouth like a starving man, which is what he feels like right now, and she lets out a gasp, her fingers sliding through his hair as he runs his tongue along soft, soft skin.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” she says in a tight voice. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to be around you and not, you know.”

He wiggles against her hips and she lets out a choked laugh, legs squeezing tighter around him. He switches breasts, palming the other one in his hand as she rolls her hips. He kisses her sternum, traces the lines of her ribs with his tongue, scrapes his teeth against her hip bones. He thinks about whether it’s gross to hook up on the bathroom floor and then decides he’s too turned on to care, not when Felicity is half naked under him.

When he hits her bikini bottoms he stretches out of his stomach, hands coaxing Felicity’s thighs apart. He’s too impatient to use his mouth, he tugs roughly on the ties and watches the fabric fall away, leaving her bare to him. He spreads her open with one hand and darts his tongue out to lick her, holding her down by the hips when she cries out and jerks into his mouth. He goes slow, alternates tracing circles with the tip of his tongue with sharp little flicks.

“Oh,” Felicity exhales, soft and low. “Oliver.”

Her hand reaches down to nestle in his hair, the other one resting on top of his where it’s splayed across her hip. He keeps working at her, no rush, everything narrowed down to the sound of her breathing and the fall of the water hitting the shower tiles and her wet skin against his tongue. Felicity’s breathing gets faster until she’s panting loudly, her fingers finding his so she can grip his hand, and then she pushes up into him as her thighs fall in towards his face as she bucks against his mouth. He rubs her thighs, presses little kisses to her hips until her breathing slows down. He pulls himself up the length of her body, groaning when he settles into the cradle of her hips, her skin soft and wet against him.

She pulls his head down for a kiss and cries into his mouth when he grinds into her. He does it again and she sobs, her hips rolling frantically against his. “I can’t... believe I want to… have sex with you, ungh, on the floor,” she grits out.

He drags his mouth across her collarbone, weight in his hands so he doesn’t crush her as her rocks against her. “You want me to fuck you like this?”

She shudders, her eyes squeezing closed as her hands grip his ass. “I just, oh fuck, you feel so good, I think I’d let you fuck me anywhere.”

“Fuck,” he groans, grinding down against her.

She gasps and shakes with her whole body, knees falling open to the sides. He grips himself and pushes in, body stretching out over hers and she’s all hot skin, hands clenching around his biceps as she arches back with a groan. He rolls his hips against hers and she gasps, her fingernails biting into his skin. He buries his face in her chest and snaps his hips, reaching down to hold her thighs, feeling the tremors rolling through her muscles.

“Oliver!” She arches back and he has to lift his head to watch her; Felicity’s eyes are half closed, her brow furrowed as she starts to clamp down around him.

He rolls his hips as he grinds down into her and her eyes pop wide open before they slam shut. Felicity writhes around him and then her mouth opens in a silent cry as she comes, thighs shaking uncontrollably in his hands. He keeps going, listening to her moan and cry out softly as heat pools in his stomach. Her hands run up and down his back and then her body tightens around him again as she lets out a broken sob, slamming her hips up into him, and he comes with a swallowed back groan.

He drops his head to her shoulder and lets out a shaky breath as he pulls out of her, her fingers featherlight on his skin. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

She lets out a shake laugh and rolls out from under some of his weight. “Yeah, that was kinda crazy.”

He cups her thigh, heart still racing in his chest. “No regrets?”

She snuggles into him and kisses his throat. “No regrets.”

“Come on.” Oliver reaches for her hands and hauls her up. “We better shower and get changed before Tommy and Sara get back.”

*

They spend the next night drinking in the hot tub, Felicity sitting to Oliver’s right in a tiny neon yellow bikini that ties behind her neck, Tommy across from him with a glass full of whiskey in one hand. Sara’s sitting on the edge of the tub in a black one piece with so many cutouts it may as well be a two piece, smoking a joint she bought off a guy she met earlier on the beach. 

Oliver takes a sip of his whiskey and coke, and slides his right hand out until it brushes against Felicity’s thigh. The jets are on and they can’t really see anything under the surface of the water. She startled a little when his fingertips trail up her thigh but then she tilts her head back, setting her screwdriver down on the deck.

“I wish we didn’t have to go back to school.” Sara takes a drag off the joint and passes it to Oliver.

He takes a hit and follows it up with a sip of his drink, and holds the joint out to Felicity. She shakes her head so he passes it back to Sara, who slides over to hand it to Tommy, who takes a hit and coughs into his elbow for a full thirty seconds while Sara sniggers, her toes trailing through the water. Oliver stretches his fingers out a little and stops when he feels the fabric of Felicity’s swimsuit bottoms. He inches his fingers under the edge of the fabric and freezes when her hand reaches down to clutch his wrist.

He glances sideways at her but she’s looking off towards the ocean, eyes half open. She doesn’t pull his hand away so he carefully stretches out his fingers until they’re caressing the inside of her left thigh. He can feel the tension in her muscles, the sublet way her hips are moving under the water, but Sara and Tommy can’t see anything from the other side of the hot tub. Oliver feels delirious, part of him can’t believe Felicity is letting him get away with this, and then he figures she must be as fucked up as he is about this, chemistry that feels completely out of his control, like it would be worth it to get caught just for the chance of being inside her, feeling her come around him one more time.

Oliver is distinctly aware that if he told Tommy any of this his best friend would laugh at him and call him completely pussy whipped, which Oliver guesses is the truth, because he can’t really think of anything he’s experienced that’s come even close to being with Felicity.

“I need another drink.” Tommy pulls himself out of the hot tub and towels off. “Be back in five.”

“Me too,” Sara says. “I think I’m gonna make some food, you guys want something?”

Oliver grips Felicity’s thigh, what he wants is for them to go inside. “Sure.”

“I don’t care,” Felicity says faintly.

“I think I want nachos.” Sara takes another drag off the joint and twirls it between her fingers. “Let’s go Merlyn, you can help me.”

“Only if you share.” Tommy whips his towel at Sara’s ass and the two of them go inside, leaving wet footprints across the deck.

As soon as Oliver hears the back door slide shut he takes Felicity’s wrist and pulls her into the far corner of the hot tub, the one part that can’t be seen from the back windows.

“Oliver, what are” -

He pins her against the wall of the hot tub and she curls around him, crying out as he shoves his hand down her bikini bottoms. “Do you think you can come before they get back?”

She stares up at him with wide eyes as her hands fly out to grip his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

He braces his left hand against the edge of the hot tub and rubs his fingers roughly against her and Felicity cries out, legs wrapping tightly around him. He grins and leans in to kiss her, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth and scraping his teeth against it. She rolls her hips to the rhythm of his fingers and he speeds up, working on a clock, pulling his mouth away when she starts to gasp for air. 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore, the rational part of him knows this is probably a terrible idea but he’s never been very good at listening to that part of himself. He just can’t make himself care, not when Felicity is writhing against him, hips rolling into his hand as he starts to rub at her harder. He doesn’t even care that he’s painfully hard in his swim trunks and there’s nothing he’s going to be able to do about that right away, because it’s a welcome reminder that doing this again is inevitable, there’s something in surrendering to the loss of control that feels like relief.

“You drive me crazy,” he whispers into her shoulder. “I can’t stop thinking about you. What you feel like. What you sound like when you’re coming and I’m fucking you and shit Felicity, you’re gonna come right, you can come, can’t you, fuck, I’m going fucking crazy like this, I wanna fuck you all the time, I swear, I’d do anything for you, just to touch you, this is killing me, it’s like I can’t fucking get enough, you’re so fucking perfect.”

She cries out, hands clutching at him desperately, and Oliver kisses her. “Shh,” he murmurs. “You have to be quiet.”

She whimpers and he moves his fingers as quickly as he can while still maintaining some semblance of a rhythm. Her knees squeeze into his sides and she shakes, her mouth falling open. “Oh!” she exhales softly.

He stares down at his hand inside her bathing suit and when he looks back up at her face she stares at him with wide eyes, lips pressed together, and he ducks his head so he’s looking right down at her and pushes his fingers hard against her, and she lets out a strangled cry that he sucks into his mouth with a kiss as she shakes her way through her climax. He strokes his fingers through her a few times before pulling his hand away, and Felicity lets out a shaky laugh.

They slide back over to where they were sitting before, and when Sara and Tommy come back outside a minute later with fresh drinks and a plate piled high with nachos, they’re both drinking and watching the ocean waves lap against the sand, like they’ve been there the whole time.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry I’m behind on replying to comments, last week was so rough for me and I honestly have no idea how I was able to get this chapter finished on time. A big thank you to everyone who read, left kudos, and commented, you guys are the best! I hope you enjoy the final chapter ❤️

_Fuck it, I love you_  
_I really do_  
-Lana Del Rey, Fuck It I Love You

The last night they’re in Malibu Felicity can’t sleep. They grilled on the back deck and finished off the rest of the alcohol and now Sara is passed out next to her in the master bed, arms curled protectively over her face. Felicity blinks idly at the silvery scar on Sara’s wrist, one of her souvenirs from the boat accident, and wonders what’s going to happen when they get back to school. It felt so good to escape, to get an entire week where she didn’t have to sit in lectures or do work study or wake up at six am to study before class. It’s not like she’s dreading going back, not really, she loves school, loves having her independence. 

But.

She doesn’t know what’s going to happen with her and Oliver when they get back to Starling. They’ve been so close this week, stealing every minute they could together and Felicity knows that this is an unsustainable situation, the two of them, but she can’t help herself. She wants to be near him all the time, craves his voice and his hands and the way his body feels against her.

She gives up on trying to sleep and gets out of bed, quietly pads out of the bedroom without waking Sara and tiptoes downstairs. The tv is on, when she walks around the corner she finds Oliver stretched out on the couch watching something in black and white.

“Hey,” she whispers. “What’re you watching?”

Oliver turns over the back of the couch and gives her a soft smile. “Hey, what’re you doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

“Yeah, me either.” Oliver lifts up the chenille throw blanket covering his legs. “Want to not-sleep together?”

Felicity walks around the coffee table and climbs over Oliver onto the couch, wedging herself between his body and the back of the couch. He lifts one arm and gets it around her shoulders and pulls the blanket over them.

“Hi,” she murmurs, stretching out next to him and resting her cheek against his chest.

He gives her shoulder a little squeeze. “Hi.”

She squints at the screen. “I think this is Roman Holliday.”

“Mm.”

Felicity wiggles a little until she gets comfortable, stretching one arm across his stomach and letting her legs tangle around his under the blanket. She can feel the rise and fall of his breath under her and there’s something so soothing about it, just lying here with him, breathing together. He trails his hand up and down her bare arm, callused fingertips tickling her bare skin.

“Did you have a good time this week?” he asks.

“Are you kidding? This is the nicest vacation I've ever been on.”

“Good,” he murmurs. “I wanted you to have fun.”

“I did,” she says back quietly. “I always have fun when I’m with you.”

“Me too.” Oliver tilts his head back against the throw pillow wedged between him and the arm of the couch. “I wish we didn’t have to go back already.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I could get used to this.”

“I’m glad you came,” he whispers. 

“Me too. Being apart for a week would’ve kinda sucked.”

“Big time,” he adds, and slides his hand down under her arm so it’s resting on her waist.

“Oliver?”

“Hmm?”

She thinks about it, asking him if he’s thought about what’s going to happen when they get back to school, and changes her mind. Right now she’s exactly where she wants to be and she doesn’t want to ruin the moment by bringing up the future. “Nevermind.”

*

“Come on lovebirds, time to wake up!”

Felicity blinks her eyes open and they focus on Sara, who’s standing in front of them with her arms crossed over her chest, looking extremely amused. When Felicity looks down she realizes that she’s laying on top of Oliver, who’s still totally asleep, one of his arms dangling off the couch towards the floor.

They fell asleep.

“Oh my god!” Felicity rolls off of him, gets tangled up in the blankets and falls onto the floor. “Oh my god, this isn’t what it looks like!”

Sara cracks up as she offers Felicity a hand to help pull her up. “It looks like you two cuddled all night to an Audrey Heburn marathon.”

“We were just sleeping,” Felicity babbles. “I mean, we weren’t sleeping, we were watching a movie and then I guess we fell asleep but I swear, that’s all that happened!”

Oliver groans and rolls over. “Why is everyone yelling?”

“Because we fell asleep!” Felicity shrieks.

Oliver squints at her and looks up where Sara’s looming over him. “Oh shit.”

“C’mon, you morons.” Sara whacks him with a throw pillow. “Last breakfast before we have to pack.”

Tommy and Oliver handle cooking bacon and scrambled eggs while Sara brews a cup of coffee and Felicity washes what’s left of the berries in the fridge and throws them in a bowl for everyone to share. They eat out on the deck, getting their last fill of the ocean before they go inside and pack.

Because Felicity is more organized than the other three put together she’s finished first and runs around the house throwing out garbage and making sure nothing’s been left behind in any of the bathrooms until everyone has all their stuff ready to go.

“Goodbye house!” Sara waves dramatically as Tommy locks the front door and starts to help Oliver load up the car. “I’ll miss you!”

Felicity giggles. “I’m sure Tommy will let you come back.”

Sara pushes her sunglasses down over her eyes and slings her arm around Felicity’s shoulders. “Yeah, I guess. C’mon baby girl, we have a flight to catch.”

They make it to the airport and through security without any mishaps, Felicity’s first class ticket clenched between her fingers. She doesn’t know exactly how it was purchased and she doesn’t want to ask, when Sara invited her she was very clear that no one expected her to pay for anything and she wasn’t allowed to feel bad about it.

They sit at the gate together waiting to board, Felicity next to Oliver while Sara and Tommy sit across from them sharing a baked pretzel the side of Sara’s head. Oliver’s scrolling through his phone with one hand and casually drapes his other arm over Felicity’s shoulders. She wishes they could do more, kiss and hold hands and act like a real couple but even this feels scandalous, and she leans into his side as subtly as she can, pretending to study on her tablet.

“Ohmygah, would you guys just kiss and get it over already?” Sara exclaims through a mouthful of pretzel.

The arm around Felicity’s shoulders tightens and when she looks up at Oliver he’s frozen, staring at Sara with panic and that makes Felicity freeze too, stuck to his side like she’s lost the ability to move.

“What’re you talking about?” Oliver asks stiffly.

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m with Lance on this one. While it’s adorable that the two of you think no one’s caught on to your little secret you’re not exactly subtle about it. Or quiet.”

“Oh my god.” Felicity’s cheeks go hot. 

Oliver gapes at Tommy. “You knew?”

“Uh, yeah bro, we do live together, and no offense but you two are terrible at sneaking around, it’s not like it was hard to figure out.”

“And seriously, how stupid do you think we are?” Sara adds. “Anyone can see you guys are like, completely obsessed with each other.”

Oliver looks like he’s going to yell but his voice comes out remarkably restrained. “So you two… knew what was going on all week, and you didn’t say anything?”

“Well obviously you didn’t want anyone to know or you would’ve told us,” Sara reasons. “Besides, watching the two of you sneaking around trying not to get caught? Highly entertaining.”

“Unbelievable,” Oliver mutter. “Un-fucking-believable.”

“You didn’t tell anyone, right?” Felicity asks anxiously.

Sara pretends to zip her lips and throw away the key. “Your secret’s safe with us.”

“Okay,” Oliver says. “Well then, no point in faking it for you guys, is there?”

Oliver uses the hand on Felicity’s shoulder to spin her sideways in her seat and when she looks up at him he cups her face in his hands and plants a kiss on her and she’s so surprised she just lets him, closing her eyes and reveling in the feeling of his mouth against hers as Sara and Tommy whoop and clap.

*

Laurel calls Felicity three days after school starts up again. Felicity is in a lecture and doesn’t see the missed call until she gets out, her finger hovering over the voicemail notification. She has no idea what Laurel could possibly want and she spends ten minutes pacing the lobby of the building before she builds up the courage to listen to Laurel’s message. To her surprise Laurel wants to meet her for coffee, no reason given, but it’s not like Laurel to reach out like this so Felicity texts her and they agree to meet at the coffee shop near the plaza in half an hour.

Laurel’s already there when Felicity arrives, sitting at a table by the window with two cardboard cups. She looks paler than usual, bundled up in her camel colored coat, long hair pulled back loosely in a low ponytail. When Felicity sits down across from her Laurel gives her a wan smile and pushes one of the cups across the table to her.

“It’s a vanilla latte, you like those, right?” Laurel asks.

Felicity nods and wonders who’s replaced her stepsister with this considerate girl. “Thanks.”

“Thanks for meeting me.” Laurel takes a sip of her coffee and gives Felicity an awkward smile. “I’d understand if you didn’t want to.”

Felicity picks at the lid of her cup. “I have a study group in forty-five minutes, so…”

“Right, okay.” Laurel takes a deep breath. “Well, I should probably start with the big stuff. I’m, um, eight days sober.”

“Wow “ Felicity murmurs. “Really?”

“Yeah, I… I started going to meetings with my dad.”

“Oh,” Felicity says in surprise. “That’s great.”

“Yeah; I’m not really feeling great yet but everyone says I’ll get there eventually.” Laurel shrugs. “Anyway, I’m working the steps and one of them is making amends, so... I wanted to apologize to you. For what I said at that dinner. I’ve… I don’t think I’ve really gotten over what happened with me and Ollie and I know it’s been, god, like nine months, but I was just so hurt and I didn’t know how to talk about it and I started drinking more, to feel better. I get now that I was trying to cover up my feelings instead of dealing with them, but… anyway, I said some things that you really didn’t deserve and I’m sorry. I should never have talked like that to you. About you. It wasn’t cool. I understand if you don’t forgive me” -

“I forgive you,” Felicity blurts out.

Laurel stares at her. “You do?”

“I know you… I know you didn’t mean what you said. And you’re my sister, right?”

Laurel’s eyes get teary. “Yeah. Right. Thank you.”

“Anyway, it isn’t really me you owe an apology to,” Felicity says. “It’s Oliver.”

*

“So, uh, I had lunch with Laurel,” Oliver says cautiously the next night, when he and Felicity are watching a movie in his room.

“Oh yeah?” she asks. “How was it?”

“I don’t know, it was actually kind of nice, I guess? Seems like she’s on an apology tour.”

Felicity nods. “I got mine yesterday.”

“She seems like she’s really trying,” he says. “I don’t know how long it’ll last but it was cool that she apologized.”

“Give her a chance. People can change.”

“We actually uh, talked about you.”

She raises a curious eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well…” Oliver scratches the back of his neck. “I sort of… floated the idea of you and I, just to gauge her reaction. She actually sort of got where I was coming from, it was weird. She’s like, being really reasonable about everything.”

Felicity stares at him. “Why would you do that?”

“Uh, ‘cus Tommy and Sara already know, and your friends probably think we’re together too, I guess it made sense to talk to Laurel about us.”

Felicity goes cold all over. This is exactly what she was afraid of, that the two of them wouldn’t be able to separate their feelings from what they were doing, that things would get messy. It’s one thing to hookup every once in awhile but everyone seems to be under the impression that she and Oliver were secretly _dating_ , which is crazy, because people who date eventually break up, and even if they don’t most relationships don’t last. People get hurt, people cheat.

People leave.

“Felicity.” Oliver’s brow is furrowed. “Are you okay?”

“I have to go.” She gets up and jams her feet into her boots, looking around for her backpack.

“What are you talking about?” Oliver slides off the edge of the bed. “Are you seriously mad I told Laurel?”

“No, I’m not mad, I’m just… we said there would be rules!”

His expression softens. “Felicity.”

“We said it was just sex, we, weren’t supposed to _tell_ people.”

“Things change,” he counters. “Feelings change.”

“And we agreed that if one of us developed feelings for the other that we would stop doing this!”

“Well, you know me.” Oliver shrugs, hands in his pockets. “Never been great at following the rules.”

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Felicity,” Oliver takes a step towards her, blue eyes sparkling. “I think you know what that means.”

Her heart is beating so hard she can hear it in her ears. “If you have something to say to me then you should just say it.”

“Okay. Felicity Meghan Smoak.” Oliver takes another step towards her. “I’m falling in love with you.”

_In_ love. Not love. In love. Oliver’s in love with her. 

What. The. Fuck.

This was not supposed to happen. He was supposed to break up with her after graduation, he was supposed to get bored of her, she’s imagined a thousand awful scenarios of how they might end things but she really didn’t think that Oliver would stand barefoot in his bedroom declaring his love for her.

Because then she’d have to think about the fact that deep down she knows she’s in love with him too.

“I can’t do this,” she blurts out, her chest tight with panic.

She spins around and makes it to the door before Oliver stops her, his hands light on her shoulders. “Don’t go,” he whispers, his voice cracking.

She curls forward as a sob tears out of her throat, hands braced against the door. “Oliver.”

“I know,” he says softly. “I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. But I’m not running away from this anymore. I love you, Felicity.”

She closes her eyes and tears slip down her cheeks. “I love you too.”

“I know you do.” Oliver presses up against her, his chest to her back. “And I know the only reason you’re walking away is because you think you’re protecting yourself. But you can’t run away from this, Felicity. You owe it to us - hell, you owe it to _yourself_ \- to stay.”

She chokes down another sob and rests her forehead against the door. “I know. I’m just… I’m really scared.”

“I know you are,” he murmurs. “And I can’t promise that I’ll never hurt you even if it’s the last thing I’d ever want to do, because I’m human and I screw up sometimes. I can’t promise you that I’ll be a perfect boyfriend. But I can promise you that every day I’ll try my best to be the kind of man you deserve. I won’t leave. I won’t walk away. I’ll stay and fight for this with everything I’ve got but I need you right there fighting along with me.”

Felicity slowly turns around and stares up at him through tear filled eyes. “You want to be my boyfriend?”

He lets out a shaky laugh and reaches out to wipe his thumbs under her eyes, flicking away teardrops. “Yeah, I do.”

Something in her chest goes warm. “So then, would I be your girlfriend?”

He grins. “That’s kind of the idea, yeah.”

“What about Laurel? And, and our families? I don’t know how our parents will feel about” -

“Fuck them,” he interrupts. “I love you. They can deal.”

Felicity presses her palm against her forehead. “This is crazy. You’re crazy.”

“I’m crazy about _you_.” He loops his arms around her waist and pulls her flush against him. 

Felicity lets out a hysterical sounding laugh. “So you’re in love with me and you don’t care who knows?”

He smiles widely. “Nope.”

“So like… we’re together now?”

“Is that what you want?” 

“Yeah,” she laughs, feeling a little dizzy from all the emotional whiplash. “I want that so much I think I wouldn’t even let myself admit it. I love you.”

He leans down and brushes his lips against hers. “I love you too.”

She sighs happily. “I’m never going to get tired of hearing that.”

Oliver practically beams. “So you’re staying?”

Felicity goes up on her tiptoes to kiss him back. “I’m staying.”

“Awesome.” He scoops her up by the waist and tosses her onto the bed.

Felicity shrieks and reaches for him as he crawls up the bed and hovers over her. “Hi boyfriend.”

He grins and brushes her hair off her forehead. “Hi girlfriend.”

She laughs, more happy than she knew she was even capable of feeling. “So we’re really doing this, huh?”

He stretches out next to her and picks up one of her hands so he can weave his fingers through them. “Yeah, we are.”

She looks down at their linked hands and gives his a squeeze. “No regrets?”

Oliver leans over her to kiss her forehead and squeezes her hand back. “No regrets.”


End file.
